1. SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER No death penalty in gay killing 2. SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER A fatal attack South of Market stirs new concern about safeguarding The City from violence based on sex orientation 3. SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER Gays mobilize as they mourn victim of fatal SoMa beating SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER, March 17, 1998 P. O. Box 7260,San Francisco,CA,94120 (Fax 415-512-1264)(E-MAIL: sfexaminer@aol.com)(http://www.examiner.com) No death penalty in gay killing Michael Dougan and Rachel Gordon OF THE EXAMINER STAFF Larry D. Hatfield of The Examiner staff and correspondent Eve Mitchell contributed to this report Suspect pleads not guilty to homicide; DA can't seek capital punishment because of loophole in hate crime law A 25-year-old South San Francisco man pleaded not guilty Tuesday to a homicide that District Attorney Terence Hallinan called a "cold-blooded (and) terrible" hate crime because the victim was gay. Meanwhile, Hallinan's press spokesman, John Shanley, said Edgar Mora would not face the death penalty if convicted. While racially motivated homicides can be charged as capital offenses, hate crimes against homosexuals cannot, Shanley said. "Interestingly enough, the penal code of the state of California does not allow a death penalty circumstance to be attached to a crime against an individual based on his sexual orientation," said Shanley Monday. "That's just the way the Legislature drafted the law." Instead, said Shanley, the hate crime enhancement could result in a one- to three-year increase in Mora's final sentence if he is convicted. Mora is accused of a hate crime that resulted in the death of Brian Wilmes, 45, who died Saturday after being attacked at the entrance to a Mission Street bar two nights earlier. The district attorney's office has characterized the attack as a hate crime because Wilmes was gay. But Mora's lawyer, public defender Robert Dunlap, said it was an alcohol- related attack, not gay-bashing. He described his client as being in a "blind drunken rage" at the time and said, "he is very contrite, remorseful, grief-stricken." Dunlap added that Mora has gay friends, saying, "It really was an alcohol- related incident. He never in his life has harbored any anti-gay biases. . . . It's not clear exactly what happened (but) the truth of the matter is that it was not a hate crime. Mr. Wilmes' sexual orientation had nothing to do with the fact that he was the victim." "The facts of the case, we feel, do make a basis for the charge that it was partly hate-inspired," Hallinan, making a rare court appearance, said. "The term "faggot' was used and these two men (Wilmes and his companion) were dressed in leather on their way to a gay bar." No bail After Municipal Judge John Conway ordered Mora held without bail, Hallinan said, "I'm very glad the judge, without even making us argue about it, agreed it was a no-bail case." Dressed in an orange jail sweat-suit and shackled hand and foot, the only words spoken by Mora during the brief arraignment were "not guilty." Conway set March 25 for a pretrial hearing in the case. Shanley said Mora would also be charged with assault for allegedly striking Michael Gillespie, 37, a homeless man who reportedly wrote down Mora's license plate number, leading to Mora's arrest. Gillespie was not seriously injured. Witnesses told police that Mora had been shouting "faggot" and other epithets at Wilmes as he attacked him. After Tuesday's hearing, Hallinan said Mora had made "a provocative statement" to Wilmes and his friend Tim Carroll outside the bar, then kicked a door and a bus shelter during the altercation. Police said they had learned little about Wilmes' alleged attacker, other than that he lived in South San Francisco, where he was arrested. "He doesn't have a record," said Inspector Napoleon Hendrix of the homicide division. "It will probably be a day or two before we know anything about him because he's never been arrested before." Gillespie and two police officers who led the investigation resulting in Mora's arrest were honored Monday by The City's Board of Supervisors. Gillespie seemed nonplused by the attention he was receiving. "I didn't even think about it; I just did it. I didn't do anything special," said Gillespie, who is unemployed. Too much hoopla "I really don't know what all this hoopla is about," he added. "I think it's all overblown." "In a dark, dark act, there was a little bit of human sunshine," Supervisor Tom Ammiano said in praise of Gillespie. "I saw what happened, and I did what was right," said the soft-spoken Gillespie, who would reveal little of his personal circumstances, other than that he slept on The City's streets. With disheveled hair and rag-tag clothes, Gillespie walked away from reporters, flashed a peace sign and said, "I really don't have much more to say." Earlier, in introducing Gillespie, Ammiano made a public appeal to help find Gillespie housing and a job. Gillespie said he would like to work if the appropriate offer came along. The board also officially praised Inspector Allan Duncan and Officer Henry Seto, both of the San Francisco Police Department's hate crimes unit, for swift action in finding the alleged culprit. Duncan said in an interview that they had worked 30 hours straight on the case in the days immediately following the assaults and hit the jackpot with Gillespie's help. A long road "Without the license plate number that he wrote down, it would have been a long road," Duncan said. "If everyone got involved like he did, we would solve a lot more crime." Duncan said that during police interviews, Mora had told about some aspects of the incident in which he was allegedly involved, but that he hadn't outright confessed to the crime. Duncan, a 29-year highly decorated veteran of the police force, went out of his way to credit Gillespie and his police colleagues in both San Francisco and South San Francisco in breaking the case. And when asked how he felt about the board saluting him and Seto, a 13-year veteran, he didn't miss a beat. "It's invigorating," he said. "It shows that the community supports what you do; it's rare that you get this kind of acknowledgment. It feels nice." Meanwhile, the mayor's office announced Monday that The City would lower the giant rainbow flag at Castro and Market streets to half-staff in honor of Wilmes. SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER, March 17, 1998 A fatal attack South of Market stirs new concern about safeguarding The City from violence based on sex orientation THE DEATH of Brian Wilmes on Saturday was a reminder to San Francisco's gay community that while its legal and political defenses have strengthened dramatically in the last decade or two, the danger posed by hate-obsessed individuals still can be lethal. Wilmes, 45, was attacked last week as he and a friend approached a South of Market bar. The assailant, possibly drunk and shouting anti-gay epithets, punched Wilmes and sent him bleeding and unconscious to the pavement, then fled the scene in a car driven by a woman. A 25-year-old suspect was located later in South San Francisco, thanks to license-tag information provided by a homeless man who had been struck by the same assailant. Fatal attacks on gays have been relatively infrequent here in recent years. The last death as a result of an anti-gay assault in San Francisco was that of George Smoot, 52, stabbed by a teenage neighbor in 1987. The case of John Bailon, 42, killed outside a Santa Clara bar in 1995, remains unsolved. Non-fatal incidents of assault and verbal harassment directed against homosexuals have continued at a steady pace of about 400 reported cases a year in the Bay Area, most in San Francisco. The City's openly gay gathering places serve to some extent as a magnet for anti-gay troublemakers from the surrounding region. Any physical attack by gay-bashers is serious, as when a quartet of 19-year-old men from Fairfield went on a rampage with baseball bats last July. The law against such crimes is about as stern as it can be - a homicidal attack motivated by hate can draw the death sentence. The police are not under fire for ignoring offenses against gay people. But the Wilmes tragedy may inspire some useful precautions to make San Francisco a safer place for people of any sexual orientation. Supervisor Tom Ammiano has scheduled a community forum for 4 p.m. Saturday at Harvey Milk School, 19th and Collingwood streets, to spur new street efforts to counter hate crime. He suggests reviving a system of people carrying whistles with which to summon help when they observe trouble. Let the whistle-blowers be a warning to practitioners of hate. SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER, March 16, 1998 Gays mobilize as they mourn victim of fatal SoMa beating Jane Kay OF THE EXAMINER STAFF "Pray to God to receive the soul of Brian into your loving embrace in a place where there is no violence or tears or pain. May God offer the love he did not receive in this city." A wave of sorrow swept over the gay community and a Castro District church Sunday where the Rev. Penny Nixon asked congregants to pray for Brian Wilmes, who died Saturday, the victim of one of SanFrancisco's worst hate crimes. Wilmes, 46, a longtime San Francisco resident, died two days after he was beaten outside a gay bar South of Market. "When we allow the rhetoric of hate to go on, and allow the religious right to continue to say terrible things about us as gay people, the inevitable result is a Brian who has lost his life on the street," Nixon, pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church, told mourners. San Francisco police booked Edgar Mora, 25, of South San Francisco, on suspicion of murder stemming from the alleged assault Thursday night. He's awaiting arraignment in county jail. If convicted of murder with special circumstances, Mora could face the death penalty because the incident is considered a hate crime. Wilmes never regained consciousness and died of apparent head injuries at about 5 p.m. Saturday. Although statistics don't show that hate crimes against gays are on the rise in San Francisco, the violent death of Wilmes - a 24-year city resident who recently retired from the Bank of America - was enough tospur community action. At 4 p.m. Saturday, Supervisor Tom Ammiano plans a community forum at Harvey Milk School at 19th and Collingwood streets. Ammiano hopes to bring together Police Chief Fred Lau and District Attorney Terence Hallinan to develop new street programs to fight hate crime. "We want to do everything we can to eradicate these kinds of crimes. There's an institutional history of hate crimes against gay men and gay women," said Ammiano, who is gay. The supervisor wants to reinstate the Butterfly Brigade of the mid-1970s and early 1980s, when people carried whistles to call for help during a wave of attacks on gays. The Bay Area's last two fatal anti-gay attacks were in 1995, when John Bailon was killed outside a Santa Clara bar, and in 1987, when George Smoot was stabbed to death in The City. "Devastated by violence' Scott Price, a friend of Wilmes' since they came to The City in the mid-1970s, said a community response is appropriate. He said he sees a growing harassment of gays by non-residents who come to The City, cruise the South of Market area and yell anti-gay epithets out of car windows. "We always had an image of a gentler, kinder San Francisco. We're just devastated by the violence," Price said. "The club scene is a magnet for the surrounding communities where people aren't tolerant," Price said. "Sometimes during the week when you know it's just San Francisco, you don't see any of this. Everyone's a minority here. It's the clubbers that come to party here. They need to respect our home." At the Metropolitan Community Church, Richard Blanton, a Noe Valley resident, said the gay community is in shock because it's a case of "there but for the grace of God go I." "I've been heckled and followed," Blanton said. "I've never been to the Loading Dock, but I do go out. You can't stay behind closed doors. But you've got to protect yourself." A family member who didn't want to be identified by name said Wilmes' death "is overwhelming for the family. The situation with Brian was very loving and very open. It was a great loss to everyone. Prejudice in any form is unacceptable." Wilmes' family rushed to San Francisco from the Santa Rosa area and Southern California when they heard he had been hospitalized Thursday night. They were with him when he died Saturday at California Pacific Medical Center. "His parents are retired. They never expected to bury a son. They were open and accepting of his gay lifestyle. It's tragic," Price said. "Brian gave a lot of money anonymously to the gay community. He helped a lot of people." Police arrested Mora on Saturday at 2 a.m., tracking him down from a license number supplied by Michael Gillespie, a homeless man who said Mora also had struck him on the back of the head before attacking Wilmes. Mora was acting drunk and out of control, according to Wilmes' friend, Tim Carroll, as the two of them approached the Loading Dock bar at 1525 Mission St. "We're not safe' Carroll told The Examiner the suspect punched Wilmes in the face as the two men approached the bar door. Wilmes fell on the pavement, bleeding and unconscious. The man was shouting anti-gay epithets, Carroll said. After the beating, a woman in a car picked up the attacker and they sped off. Mora couldn't be reached for comment at the jail Sunday. Nixon, the church pastor, said, "It reinforces that we're not safe, even in this gay mecca. It's just a blow to our very soul that people would hate us so much to kill us. Random violence is one thing. Where it's a focused hate crime, it takes us to another level." Ammiano added: "We all need to think carefully of the things we say, and the message it sends: "No gays in the military. AIDS is a disease that is deserved. Gays shouldn't be teachers,' " Ammiano said. "I don't think people realize how deep that can go."