Jeffrey Dahmer -- Police Response To Tragedy Was Racist And Homophobic

The (non)response of the Milwaukee police officers to the plight of Konerak Sinthasomphone (later killed by Jeffrey Dahmer) was not only a tragic procedural flaw or bad judgment on the part of the police officers involved. It was violently homophobic. Because they assumed "they were dealing with a homosexual lovers quarrel," they did nothing about a young man who was being "chased" and who was "naked, dazed, and bleeding" except laugh and make insulting comments.

Are we to assume that this would have been acceptable police behavior if the situation had been a gay domestic fight? It's funny to police if gay people get beaten or killed? And Laurie Eggert, lawyer for the officers, has the audacity to say their response was "consistent with being a human being." This is very, very sick.

Konerak Sinthasomphone was killed by an avowed homophobe and racist. Unfortunately, the people trained and paid and who had a chance to save him displayed the same dangerous qualities. - Carolyn Dawson, Seattle