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Hate crimes reported in Hyattsville area


Gay Vandals spray-paint 'fag' on couple's home, car


by Joshua Lynsen
Friday, September 28, 2007

A gay Hyattsville, Md., couple is among the targets of vandalism this month that are being described as hate crimes.

Robert Ponce said his home was one of three residences in eastern Hyattsville that were defaced Sept. 10 when vandals spray-painted "fag" across his front door and a car parked outside.

"It was really hard to look at that word on our door," said Ponce, a 33-year-old gay man who moved from Los Angeles to the area in November 2003.

"It's not that I mind that someone knows that I'm gay," he said, "but I didn't want kids walking through the neighborhood to see that word and learn to hate people for their differences and see this is something that people do and think it's OK to do that to people."

Ponce said the vandals also defaced white vans parked outside the homes of two Hispanic neighbors, painting "go home wetbacks" across the vehicles.

The vandalism, which Ponce said occurred overnight, was reported to Prince George's County Police as a hate crime shortly after it was discovered at 5 a.m.

"I was getting ready to leave for work," Ponce said, "and I was about to take the garbage out when I was closing the door behind me and saw someone had spray painted the word 'fag' on our front door.

"Initially, I was scared because I didn't know, at that time of day it's really dark in our neighborhood and I didn't know if the person who was responsible for it was out there. I didn't know if there was someone out there watching me or what."

Ponce said it wasn't until later that he found vandals had also painted the slur "across the hood of my car and on the roof of my car and on my windshield and around the windows."

Officers quickly responded to his call for help, Ponce said, and took multiple photographs and statements.

The police department did not respond to the Blade's request for information.

He said investigators told him they would relay the report to the department's gang division, and would "increase the patrol for 60 to 90 days in our area."

Meredith Curtis, an American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland spokesperson, said the organization was troubled to learn of the crimes in Hyattsville.

"We're concerned of the targeting of immigrants in the community and the targeting of gay and lesbian couples in the community," she said. "Hate crimes are a concern to everyone because it really breaks down the public trust."

Curtis said her office was unaware of other hate crimes to recently target gay Marylanders.

But the vandalism in Hyattsville came days after officials at the nearby University of Maryland campus in College Park destroyed a noose that hung in a tree near a building that houses several black campus groups.

"There's been a wave of hate crimes recently," Ponce said. "It seems like this is something you hear about far too often these days."

Ponce, a federal employee who lives with his 36-year-old partner of two years, said he was unable to name a suspect in the Hyattsville crimes for police.

He noted that he and his partner were not previously out to their neighbors and do not "show public displays of affection," so it's unclear how vandals knew the couple to be gay.

"We had a burglary earlier in the year," Ponce said. "They think it might have been the people involved in that, so they're going to reopen that investigation to see if there's any leads there."

Although shaken by the experience, Ponce said he was heartened that his neighbors and coworkers offered to help clean the graffiti.

"In Latin American countries, homosexuality is not received very well," he said. "For my neighbors, who didn't think twice about it, to come over and help me remove that off my car was a pretty shining example of, we're all just people."

Ponce said in the days since the vandalism, he's dwelled on the poem "First They Came" by theologian Martin Niemöller.

"That little story or phrase has been sticking in my head because all the time you hear about immigrants and all these awful things about sending them back, and all these stereotypes against this one group of people," he said. "Yet they're the ones who stood up for me that day.

"So I think, just think a second about judging people for what group they're in, because one day there might not be anyone to speak up for you."