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Friday, February 23, 2007

It Takes a Real Man to Bash a 72-Year-Old

posted by on February 23 at 11:54 AM

And if the old man dies from the injuries, all the better.

Hot Tipper R reminded me of this heartbreaking story from Detroit, where gay senior citizen Andrew Anthos is clinging to life after being assaulted by a man with a metal pipe.

As Gay.com reports:

Anthos, who lives on a disability check, was riding the bus from the public library back to his apartment Feb. 13 when another male passenger approached him and asked if he was gay…Anthos left the bus only to be followed by the man, who hit him in the back of the head with a metal pipe, then fled. The attack left 72-year-old Andrew Anthos paralyzed from the neck down and virtually without speech.

Every detail makes it worse:

Anthos, a die-hard patriot and Ava Gardner fan, is known for his years-long campaign to illuminate the dome of the state Capitol in Lansing for one night each year in red, white and blue lights.

Not only a gay patriot, but a frickin’ good samaritan:

He had been helping his wheelchair-using friend through the snow when he was struck.

According to the Lansing State Journal, last night Andrew Anthos slipped into a coma and was administered last rites. His still-at-large assailant is described as “a light-skinned black man, no more than 23 years old, about 5 foot 7 and 150 pounds.”

Does Michigan have a death penalty?

RSS icon Comments

1

I hope the prick hangs until dead. And may it be a slow death but then the criminal probably goes to church and was doing what Jesus would do.

But I asked earlier that while listening to "Young Turks" on Air America a week ago one of the commentators mentioned that he did think that hate crimes should cover attacks on gays or lesibians. Now I was just catching the tail end of the interview he was doing. (Can anyone out there confirm or deny what I heard?) I would like to know before I write him a nice little letter telling him where he can stick his radio show at.

Posted by Andrew | February 23, 2007 12:01 PM
2

The hell with the death penalty. He'll have to get over his homophobia real quickly when he gets to the pen.

Posted by fromohio | February 23, 2007 12:01 PM
3

ah yes, prison rape, always funny.

the criminal is probably severely mentally ill. he probably should have been in a decent mental institution.

Posted by chris | February 23, 2007 12:05 PM
4

Prediction: The only thing more deafening than the chatter from the left on this will be the silence on the right.

Posted by Rottin' in Denmark | February 23, 2007 12:07 PM
5

Prediction: The only thing more deafening than the chatter from the left on this will be the silence on the right.

Posted by Rottin' in Denmark | February 23, 2007 12:08 PM
6

What does being an Ava Gardner fan have to do with anything?

Posted by Smarm | February 23, 2007 12:08 PM
7

the description should also read, "and a devout christian."

Posted by Mike in MO | February 23, 2007 12:08 PM
8

On the other hand, a 70-year-old tourist was attacked by muggers on a cruise in Costa Rica, and KILLED one of the little shits:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/304831_tourist23.html

Posted by Fnarf | February 23, 2007 12:35 PM
9

Sadly, no death penalty in MI.

Posted by giantladysquirrels | February 23, 2007 12:38 PM
10

The assailant a devout Christian? Folks this was Detroit (there was a race component in that unfortunately polarized city), I put odds that the attacker was a bigger Tim Hardaway fan than a Jesus fan...

Posted by Things that make you go hmmm | February 23, 2007 12:40 PM
11

Where's Seattle's heroic fire-fighting, walker-wielding SuperSenior when he's needed?

Seriously, gay bashing is no joke. If the Religious Right can turn Terry Frickin' Schiavo into the patron saint of their issues, can the Queer Left at least have their 15 minutes of National Obsession about THIS crime? Or does the victim of gay violence have to be a young twenty-something tied to a fence in Wyoming to get national MSM coverage?

Posted by andy niable | February 23, 2007 12:42 PM
12

Mentally ill? Since when does someone have to be mentally ill to be a homophobic, violent fuckwit?

Posted by keshmeshi | February 23, 2007 12:47 PM
13

We don't know if he's mentally ill. But, he could be. Killing the man who did it will not bring the victim back to life (if he dies). It will not deter crime. It will not give the victim's family "closure." It would a revenge killing and would serve no purpose other than to make us feel like we "did" something.

Posted by Papayas | February 23, 2007 1:13 PM
14

So sad. If you ever thought public trans was "bad" here in Seattle, try riding the bus in Detroit. NO ONE rides the bus.

Unless you carry a gun.

Posted by KELLY O | February 23, 2007 1:17 PM
15

Papayas at #13: I agree. I am against the death penalty. The only time it makes sense to me is when I'm overwhelmed with emotion—which is one great reason it should be outlawed everywhere.

Posted by David Schmader | February 23, 2007 1:22 PM
16

13 - The world is growing more and more overpopulated. I think thinning the heard of murderers, rapists, pedophiles is not a bad thing.

Revenge is an underrated reason for the death penalty.

Posted by elswinger | February 23, 2007 1:23 PM
17

Hope this cheers you all up. Not all old folks are incapable of defending themselves. Some kick rightous ass.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17284416/
U.S. tourist in his 70 kills mugger with barehands in Costa Rica and chases off the rest.

Posted by DreadLion | February 23, 2007 1:24 PM
18

aah number 8 you beat me to it. my bad.

Posted by DreadLion | February 23, 2007 1:29 PM
19

@13: wow, overpopulation as a defense for the death penalty. that's one i haven't heard in a while. too many black people in Detroit too, right? let's "thin the heard [sp]" of them, too.

the state killing people is always wrong. why make this tragic situation even more so?

Posted by lorax | February 23, 2007 1:31 PM
20

oops, i meant @16

Posted by lorax | February 23, 2007 1:35 PM
21

#12 ever been to a mental hospital?
And thanks to Reagan half the homophobic violent fuckwits were released out onto the streets from those hospitals. I think Crazy has been severly underated, and every body who is violent is made out like they were sane when they did it.
As far as I'm concerned Theres a lot of mental folks who have been ignored by society for far to long, and accepted as 'normal' sociopaths(WTF) and sent to prisons where they do not belong in general population. And after serving a term are released without any scientific, proof that they can function and not hurt themselves or anyone else.
Maybe our view of Crazy needs to be reexamined. Its shaky ground, but look at the fact that maybe this could have been prevented. This could have been some deep troubled young man who had a shook up mind, and I'm not talking Hannibal Lecter here, I'm saying he could have been pretty messed up with skewed views of Homosexuals. And that I would say makes him prime candidate for Electro Shock treatment lol.

Posted by DreadLion | February 23, 2007 1:54 PM
22

I definitely wouldn't want the death penalty for this fuckwit, just like I didn't want it for Timothy McVeigh or Matthew Shepherd's killers. Now that McVeigh is dead, he's a martyr to the right wing, white supremacist, anti-government movement, and any gay basher who gets executed could well become the John Birch of homophobes.

Aside from that, as a religious person, redemption is central to my beliefs. If this man is arrested, goes to prison, and becomes a better person, one who aids society instead of taking from it, then executing him would prevent that.

Posted by Gitai | February 23, 2007 2:12 PM
23

@21,

If the definition of mental illness is defined that broadly, then there wouldn't be many people outside of mental institutions.

Posted by keshmeshi | February 23, 2007 3:05 PM
24

Gitai @22:
I'm also a big believer in redemption. Even someone with life in prison without the possibility of parole can change his life and the lives of those around him.

Posted by Papayas | February 23, 2007 3:20 PM
25

This is why I pursued a black belt. If some dipshit tries to gay bash me when I'm 72, he better have a fucking gun.

Posted by SDA in SEA | February 23, 2007 4:34 PM
26

#19 You're a fucking racist! I was talking about executing serial killers and such. You brought up race asshole.

Posted by elswinger | February 23, 2007 4:46 PM
27

#13 wrote: We don't know if he's mentally ill. But, he could be.

Anyone else retch a little bit at these kinds of responses? By me, anyone who takes a lead pipe to an old man's head because he's gay is not sane, i.e., he is insane, aka, "mentally ill." So you're left parsing out which brand of insanity is actionable by which institution--"oh, you're sane insane, you go to trial, but you--you're insane insane, so you go over to there for an evaluation by our qualified mental health professionals, and you, we can't quite figure you out, so let's spend a few years and hundreds of thousands of dollars on your knuckle-dragging ass until we're sure which kind of nut you really are. And you, tweaker--please step into the normally-sane, but temporarily-insane due-to-three-day-meth-binge (but not totally sane because you went on three-day-meth-binge) holding cell."


My solution: sanity snitches. Put little guys with tin-foil hats on into the Sanity Determination holding pens, with their job being to repeatedly accost the potential nutcase with all manner of bizarre insinuation. Then you film the repsonse with the camera built into his tin-foil hat. Then you show the video to high-school kids as part of civics education and have them vote on it. Couldn't work out any worse then the current system.

Posted by croydonfacelift | February 24, 2007 10:44 AM
28

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Posted by fsai xijaum | February 25, 2007 12:37 PM
29

qech ubyqp cuobqigl uogbhtdae vqml tdcyualh bmdqcf

Posted by fsai xijaum | February 25, 2007 12:40 PM
30

Has anyone set up a fund to collect donations for the lighting of the Capitol Dome, the way Andrew wanted?

I've had a couple of comments indicating folks are interested in contributing.

Posted by ronni | March 4, 2007 6:56 PM

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