Mar 04, 2005  |  By: LAURA DOUGLAS-BROWN  | COMMENTS     

ATLANTA — Matthew Shepard. Billy Jack Gaither. Scott Amedure, the guest who revealed his gay crush on the “Jenny Jones” show.

When the nation’s first-ever symposium on “Defeating the Gay Panic Defense” convened in Atlanta last week, many of the cases featured in the opening video presentation were familiar to those who followed the highest profile anti-gay killings of recent years.

But one name that never made national headlines loomed largest during the three-day forum for criminal justice and law enforcement officials: Ahmed Dabarran.
An assistant district attorney in Fulton County, Dabarran was killed May 6, 2001, in his Cobb County apartment.

“For many prosecutors, the gay panic defense may be an academic thing, but for us it is very personal,” Fulton District Attorney Paul Howard said during the symposium’s opening session on Feb. 24.

Like the men who murdered Shepard and the other higher-profile victims, Dabarran’s accused killer attempted to excuse his actions by claiming they were necessary to fend off unwanted sexual advances — a strategy dubbed the “gay panic defense.”

Unheard of in heterosexual contexts or among women who kill women, experts say the defense thrives on a culture that raises men to believe that homosexuality is a threat against masculinity, and that masculinity must be maintained at any expense.

In Dabarran’s case, it worked.

On Feb. 28, 2003, a Cobb County Superior Court jury acquitted Roderiqus Reshad Reed of murder and all other charges in Dabarran’s death. Reed’s attorneys focused on allegations that Dabarran — who was born in Somalia and had a wife from an arranged marriage, although they did not live together — led a secret gay life.

According to the defense, Dabarran lured Reed to his apartment with promises of a party “with girls,” and then performed oral sex on Reed while another man pointed a gun at him.

While Reed took Dabarran’s cell phone, car and identification and admitted in court testimony to hitting Dabarran several times in the head, his attorneys contended the actions were justified to escape, although Cobb prosecutors argued that Dabarran was asleep at the time.

Critics claimed the Cobb assistant district attorney who handled the case failed to counter the defense strategy of demonizing Dabarran. Prosecutor Tom Cole and District Attorney Pat Head refused comment at the time on their handling of the case.

Meanwhile, the outcome continues to haunt Dabarran’s coworkers in the Fulton District Attorney’s office.

“One of our own was brutally murdered, and his murderer walked away with absolutely no justice,” Holly Hughes, a Fulton prosecutor who heads up the county’s hate crimes unit, said at the symposium.

A desire to see some good come from Dabarran’s death prompted the Fulton office to put on the ground-breaking forum.

“I never got the impression the Cobb County prosecutors threw the case, or that they were not well-meaning and didn’t intend to get a conviction,” Howard said. “But as I have talked with other people about the case, what I’ve found is there is really a lack of knowledge about gay panic. …

“So I said to my staff, ‘We ought to not just complain about this, but we should do something to help others learn about it.’”

Notable absence
The Feb. 23-25 symposium offered continuing education credits for attorneys and law enforcement officials. It featured a wide range of discussions, from panels on broader social issues to more practical advice on how to ward off the strategy through initial police interrogations, jury selection and prosecutors’ opening and closing statements to jurors.

Co-hosted by the Atlanta Police Department and the FBI’s Atlanta office, the event drew 145 registered attendees, according to Erik Friedly, spokesperson for the Fulton district attorney.

Most attendees were from jurisdictions in the metropolitan Atlanta area. Representatives from the FBI, Georgia Bureau of Investigations and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia also participated, Friedly said.

One local district attorney’s office was notably absent.

“Where the hell is Cobb County?” asked Bernadette Hernandez, a gay investigator with the Fulton district attorney’s office, during a Feb. 25 town hall meeting wrapping up the event.

No one from the Cobb district attorney’s office, which prosecuted the Dabarran case, registered to attend the symposium, Friedly confirmed.

But the Cobb County Police Department did send an officer.

“The Ahmed Dabarran case was in Cobb County, and our deputy chief wanted somebody here to represent the police department,” Cobb Det. Richard Plunkett said.
Cobb prosecutors could not be reached for comment.

Blaming the victim
Presenters at the gay panic symposium included prosecutors, police officers and activists.

Jeffrey Montgomery, executive director of Michigan’s Triangle ...