Mar 31, 2006   | COMMENTS     

NEW YORK — Steven Pomie cried in court on Tuesday after being convicted of a brutal attack that left a Brookly gay man in a wheelchair, the New York Daily News reported. Dwan Prince, 28, was beaten, stomped and left for dead on June 8, 2005, by Pomie and two accomplices who attacked him for being gay. "I'm happy," Prince said after the verdict, according to the Daily News. "But I still feel scared. I don't know if there are still guys out there." Prince, a former construction worker and fitness buff, was left partially paralyzed and unable to control trembling nerves, the paper reported. Earlier in the week, Prince testified with a slurred voice that that his last memory was saying goodbye to his brother and the first one after it was waking up paralyzed in the hospital. Pomie, a 22-year-old ex-con, faces up to 25 years behind bars.

SAVANNAH, Ga. — Savannah's police chief said March 27 he would not hire a gay police officer to serve as a liaison to gay residents although the city's mayor and representatives from Georgia Equality said they were under the impression the step would be taken. Willie Lovett, Savannah-Chatham's interim police chief, said instead of hiring a gay officer he would give direct access to his office to gay community representatives. Lovett's statement is apparently a reversal from an agreement made March 23 when he and city officials met with representatives with Georgia Equality, a statewide gay rights group. Georgia Equality praised the police department for agreeing to the hiring of an openly gay officer in a March 24 news release. The meeting with Lovett was in response to a March 18 attack on Travis McLain, 20, in a parking garage. McLain's alleged assailant called him a "faggot." McLain alleged at a press conference last week that police were careless in responding. Savannah police are conducting an internal investigation to determine if the responding officer was negligent, according to Lovett. He said a suspect has been identified in McLain's beating and an arrest could be made in the next few days.

NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. — A man wearing a gas mask broke into a woman's mobile home in this Tampa suburb March 23, slashed her face and arms, and fatally wounded a friend of her son by stabbing him in the neck, the New York Times reported. Authorities described the attack as a possible Nazi hate crime. Patricia Wells, 45, who is white, told officers that she had been attacked because she dates a black man, the Times reported. A small compound occupied by neo-Nazis is next door to Wells' home, the Times reported. David Dirolf, 21, a former member of the group, said in an interview that he had heard members threaten Wells and her son on several occasions. Her son was a target because he is gay, Dirolf said. Kristofer Guy King, a 17-year-old male stabbed in the attack, was apparently mistaken for Wells' son, who was not home.

DENVER — Christopher "Kitty" Grey, a transgender inmate serving 16 years to life at the Limon prison in Colorado, has demanded to be placed in a women's prison. Grey takes hormones provided by the state, has a feminine gait, and long, curly hair. "For all intents and purposes, I am a woman in a man's prison," Grey said during a recent interview with the Denver Post at the prison. "That's like putting a cat in a dog kennel." Grey is serving 16 years to life for molesting an 8-year-old girl for five years. Grey can't be put in a woman's facility because she has male genitalia, according to the Denver Post. Grey claims Colorado has a constitutional obligation to perform a sex-change operation.

LONDON — A mother of two poured bleach over her female partner because she planned to meet up with an ex-girlfriend, the BBC reported March 24. Juliet Wilson, 35, of North London, was sentenced three years in jail for the attack on Maxine Grizzle, 37, according to the BBC. The attack on Oct. 26 left Grizzle with burns on her face and upper body. Wilson had admitted grievous bodily harm, the BBC reported. Grizzle forgave Wilson after the attack and ...