Tag: Fox News

Sheriff Backs Off Check Forging Allegation against Hate-Crime Victim Ryan Skipper

Jon Ponder

In an article published today — just one day shy of a month since Ryan Skipper was murdered — Donna Wood, a spokesperson for Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, tells Express Gay News that initial statements implying that Skipper was involved in illegal activities with his alleged killers were wrong:

Despite its earlier assertions, the sheriff’s office now acknowledges there is no evidence Skipper was involved in a check forging scheme with the two suspects.

“There is no indication that Ryan Skipper was involved in any illegal activity…” Wood also said that the two suspects “gave conflicting stories about time and events.”

The sheriff’s office also acknowledged for the first time that the scenario of events leading up to the murder as laid out by Sheriff Judd for the media on March 16 or 17 was based entirely on the self-serving statements of the alleged killers:

In some media accounts, it sounded as if Skipper was involved in check forgery with [accused killers William] Brown and [Joe] Bearden. But police have since clarified the statement, pointing out that they were just recounting what the suspects had told them. They have not found any evidence that Skipper was involved in any kind of check forging scheme with the two suspects.

The check-copying charge was just one of several allegations Sheriff Judd made about Skipper’s behavior. He also told reporters that Skipper picked up Joe Bearden, a stranger, and took him back to his house where they smoked pot and then conspired to forge checks. In media reports, the sheriff did not acknowledge that this version of events was based on the alleged killer’s statements. No one in the local media questioned him about the sourcing, apparently.

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Remembering Ryan Skipper One Month After His Murder

Trish

Vigils will be held around the state of Florida and in Washington tomorrow to remember Ryan Keith Skipper.

Ryan was brutally murdered one month ago — stabbed 20 times, his body tossed on the side of the road. In life, Ryan was an open, fun, caring young man with enough energy to manage a retail store full-time while pursuing a degree in computer technology and fixing computers for his many, many friends on the side.

He was also gay. And this last fact is likely the reason Ryan was killed.

The vigils are not, as their organizers remind us, a time to protest. They are instead a time to honor Ryan’s life, which his friends and family are determined to remember for more than its end. I recently talked to Ryan’s brother, Damien Skipper, to find out what the handsome and friendly 25-year-old was like.

The vigils are a time to honor Ryan’s life, which his friends and family are determined to remember for more than its end

“We grew up between Auburndale and Winter Haven. We were both born in Winter Haven Hospital…and we lived in Polk County our whole lives until I went away to college.

Ryan stayed in Polk County and he’s gone to school. He went to Polk Community [College] for awhile and basically he’s carried a job since he graduated from high school. All of his friends are there and I tried a few to get him to move out of Polk County, just because of — not that I ever conceived or could conceive something like this happening — but I just told him that I thought it would be nicer if he lived in a metro area.

Ryan was a handsome and intelligent young man and he’s incredibly honest and he is a true friend to anyone who knew him and I’ll stick with the cliche that everyone has been saying, which is that if you knew Ryan you loved him. He was just that type of person. I don’t think there’s anything in his past that anyone would ever be ashamed of. Ryan, just like all of us, was imperfect. That doesn’t mean anything negative, it just means that we can all strive for perfection but none of us will reach it.

And so I remember Ryan as…I said this at his eulogy. I remember going to the hospital with my father and seeing Ryan and just knowing from that day that he’s my little brother. I’m his big brother and it’s my duty to kind of show him the ropes and protect him and just, you know, make sure that he lived a great life. And he did.

And it’s unfortunate that someone decided they could take that away from us, take that away from him.

Two men were arrested for Ryan’s murder, which is being investigated as a hate crime. They are jailed without bond, and will be until their trials.

Tomorrow we will remember Ryan, a brother and son, friend and student and coworker, who was taken from us. If we protest tomorrow, let it be against hate and intolerance, violence and ignorance, savagery and loss.

If Imus Had Called Them ‘Dykes’ He’d Still Be on the Air

Jon Ponder

Don Imus blurted out what every crusty old white Republican watching the Rutgers women’s basketball game was probably thinking, but if he had called them “dykes” (which is the other label these old farts had in mind, I’m sure) instead of “nappy-headed ho’s,” he’d still be on the air every morning hobnobbing with the Gang of 500 and raking in millions from CBS radio and MSNBC.

Sure, there were voices of protest when the TV actor Isaiah Washington called a gay colleague a “faggot.” But corporate America didn’t pull its advertising from “Grey’s Anatomy,” as it did with Mr. Imus, did it?

Gay actor and writer Harvey Fierstein put it this way in a New York Times oped:

For the past two decades political correctness has been derided as a surrender to thin-skinned, humorless, uptight oversensitive sissies. Well, you anti-politically correct people have won the battle, and we’re all now feasting on the spoils of your victory. During the last few months alone we’ve had a few comedians spout racism, a basketball coach put forth anti-Semitism and several high-profile spoutings of anti-gay epithets.

What surprises me, I guess, is how choosy the anti-P.C. crowd is about which hate speech it will not tolerate. Sure, there were voices of protest when the TV actor Isaiah Washington called a gay colleague a “faggot.” But corporate America didn’t pull its advertising from “Grey’s Anatomy,” as it did with Mr. Imus, did it? And when Ann Coulter likewise tagged a presidential candidate last month, she paid no real price.

In fact, when Bill Maher discussed Ms. Coulter’s remarks on his HBO show, he repeated the slur no fewer than four times himself; each mention, I must note, solicited a laugh from his audience. No one called for any sort of apology from him. (Well, actually, I did, so the following week he only used it once.)

Face it, if a Pentagon general, his salary paid with my tax dollars, can label homosexual acts as “immoral” without a call for his dismissal, who are the moral high and mighty kidding?

Winter Haven News Chief Announces Ryan Skipper Vigil at Polkonline.com

Jon Ponder

We’re updating our list of local papers that have reported online on the upcoming vigil for hate crime victim Ryan Skipper:

The Lakeland Ledger continues to ignore or be unaware of the upcoming vigils.

As you can see, we added the Tampa Tribune to the list. A concerned citizen contacted a reporter at the Tribune to ask why the paper had not covered the vigil. According to the caller, the reporter said he hadn’t heard about the vigil. Perhaps the news release from Equality Florida was misdirected to the wrong department.

Update: A source close to the organization of the vigil locally says the Tribune plans to cover it.

We also updated the list to show that News Chief, one of the two news services based in Polk County, has covered the details of Saturday’s events via its website, polkonline.com:

Statewide vigils are scheduled for Saturday to honor 25-year-old Ryan Skipper, whose body was found near Wahneta early on March 14…

Equality Florida, an organization dedicated to securing equality and justice for the state’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, will assist with vigil plans, in Polk County, around the state and possibly in other parts of the nation Saturday to mourn Skipper’s death…

The Polk County vigil will be held at 1 p.m. Saturday in Winter Haven at Central Park, located on Central Avenue at Fourth and Fifth streets. For details, call 813-849-3919 or russ@eqfl.org.

The Lakeland Ledger continues to ignore or be unaware of the upcoming vigils. (I’m planning a separate article on this later.)

Local Coverage of the Lack of Local Coverage

Our coverage of the local media’s lack of coverage of the murder of Ryan Skipper has been noticed by a writer at Lakelandlocal.com:

[Posts] at the Pensito Review are proving a point about local newspapers. The public hasn’t written them off yet. The newspaper is where we expect to find local news. Not 60 Seconds of Local News at Six. We’re looking for The Ledger to cover the CSX story and Pensito Review is asking why the Ledger hasn’t mention the vigils for Ryan Skipper to be held Saturday in 13 Florida cities and Washington, D.C.

H/t thesue2u

Polk County Papers Ignoring Vigils for Ryan Skipper

Jon Ponder

Which local papers have reported online on the upcoming vigil for hate crime victim Ryan Skipper?

Fortunately, most people in the county probably read the Orlando Sentinel:

Equality Florida is planning a day of statewide vigils, including one in Polk County, to draw attention to hate crimes.

The vigils are in response to the death of Ryan Keith Skipper, a 25-year-old Polk County man stabbed to death March 14. His body was dumped alongside a road…

Skipper was gay, according to people who knew him, the Sheriff’s Office said. A witness claimed Brown said Skipper had made advances toward him, and that was the reason for the killing, a sheriff’s spokeswoman said.

Authorities have labeled it a hate crime.

Equality Florida, an advocacy organization, is seeking volunteers to assist or hold a vigil Saturday. If interested, contact Russell Patterson at russ@eq fl.org or 1-813-849-3919.

Lakeland Ledger Grabs at a Little Good News in Ryan Skipper Mess

Buck Banks

The Lakeland Ledger ain’t the New York Times. Duh. But the Lakeland Ledger is the local paper doing the bad reporting on the Ryan Skipper murder case, not the Times.

I wonder how many negative letters the Lakeland Ledger has received and whether we’ll ever see any of those in print.

We had an e-mail at Pensito Review the other day from a guy who was trying to call the Ledger to task over its bad reporting. Garry, from Louisiana, was frustrated by what he’d read, so he sent an e-mail to the Ledger expressing his frustration (and quoting from Pensito Review). The Ledger, surprise, responded:

Thank you for your email. Everything we printed that you dispute has come from the Sheriff’s Office. If they change what they think happened at some point, we’ll report on that. But for now, that’s its official report.

Best,
Lenore Devore
Managing Editor
The Ledger
Lakeland, Florida

(from Garry’s e-mail to us)

But not everybody is disappointed in the Ledger’s reportage, and the paper printed a letter to the editor today that congratulates it on its coverage of the murder:

Re: Ryan Skipper, thank you for the nice article about Ryan [“2 Indicted In Slaying Of Polk Man,” March 30, page B1]. He was a great guy and a good friend. I will miss him terribly.

Hopefully, I can one day make it through the entire article, but as of right now I can’t without breaking down in tears. I’ll never understand how anyone can do such a thing. Disliking gays is one thing, but there is no rationale for killing them.

Ryan wasn’t just some random gay guy. He was someone’s friend and some parent’s child. There are no words that could make him less of a human being. But I have to wonder if the same can be said for the young men accused of taking Ryan’s life. Their reason for killing him isn’t justified. If they truly felt uncomfortable around him, they could’ve just walked away.

I read an article, recently, about a man who has to spend the rest of his days looking at a picture of the woman he killed. Maybe these men should face that same reality. Putting them to death wouldn’t inflict nearly the same amount of heartache they’ve put Ryan’s friends through.

They should have to be reminded every day of what they took from us, as long as they draw breath on this Earth. We won’t get a quick exit from our pain, why should they?

TODD A. JOHNSON

Lakeland

I hope Todd at some point is able to read the entire article because I think then he would join the rest of us in our assessment that the Ledger is doing a crappy job of reporting on this case.

Parroting back the homophobic assumptions and allegations offered BY THE GUYS WHO DID THE CRIME that Sheriff Judd has said is not good newspaper reportage. It’s not journalism, and all it does is slander a dead guy who, by most accounts was a good egg, not a bad fellow, and by any account did not deserve to be killed.

And printing a letter from a guy who hasn’t even read the whole article is no mea culpa, nor does it let the Ledger off the hook for screwing up.

It’s pitiful that the Lakeland Ledger, out of desperation, prints the only positive letter it has received about its coverage of the Skipper murder. I wonder how many negative letters it has received and whether we’ll ever see any of those in print.

Vigils for Ryan Skipper – April 14, 2007

Jon Ponder

Equality Florida, in conjunction with the family and friends of Ryan Skipper will be holding vigils in his memory across the state of Florida on Saturday:

Here are the details as listed on the Equality Florida website:

  • Winter Haven
    1:00 PM
    Central Park, Central Ave at 4th and 5th Streets, Winter Haven
    Russell Patterson, 813-849-3919, russ@eqfl.org

  • Daytona Beach
    7:00 PM
    Home Metropolitan Church
    500 South Ridgewood Avenue
    David Perreault, 386-453-3089
    david.perreault@earthlink.net

  • Tampa
    7:00 PM
    USF Dream Pool, MLK Jr. Memorial Fountain by the Student Union
    Tamara Wasserman 941-626-3164, wasserman2001@yahoo.com

  • Jacksonville
    1pm on Saturday, April 14th
    UU Church of Jacksonville,
    7405 Arlington Expressway, Jacksonville, FL
    32211uujax@bellsouth.net(904) 725-8133

  • Clearwater
    7:00 PM
    On the shores of Peace Pond, Unity Church of Clearwater
    2465 Nursery Road
    (on the south side of Nursery, between Belcher andUS 19)
    Leddy Hammock, Minister, Unity Church of Clearwater, 727-531-0992
    leddy@unityofclearwater.org

  • Pensacola
    1:00 PM
    Holy Cross Metropolitan Community Church
    3130 W Fairfield Dr, Pensacola, 32505 – (850) 469-9090
    www.holycrossmcc.com

  • West Palm Beach
    Downtown Lake Worth
    6:30 PM
    Gather at Town Hall
    Dixie and Lake Ave
    Three block vigil walk to park in center of Downtown
    Allan Hendricks, 561.541.3700, eqflpbc@yahoo.com

  • Fort Lauderdale
    1:00 PM
    Gay and Lesbian Community Center
    1717 N. Andrews Avenue, Fort Lauderdale
    Rev. Frank Faine, frank@sunshinecathedral.org

  • Port Richey
    11:00 AM
    Waterside Landing
    7737 Grand Blvd.
    727-841-7900
  • Miami
    1:00 PM
    Pridelines Youth Services
    180 NE 19th St (Corner of NE 19th St & 2nd Ave)
    Tobias Packer, tobias@eqfl.org, 305-924-6237
  • Broward
    The Broward Vigil will be held at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center,
    1717 N. Andrews Avenue,
    at 1:00 p.m. On Saturday, April 14
    For more information, contact Rev. Frank Faine:
    frank@sunshinecathedral.org

  • Tallahassee
    10:00 AM
    Front steps of the Old Capitol
    Jim Van Riper & Alain Raymond, alain@eqfl.org, 904-807-5928
  • Ocala
    8:00 PM
    Downtown Square
    Robert W. Poth III, homes@robpoth.com, 352-697-2522
  • Key West
    7:00 PM
    Steps of the Old Customs House
    Base of White Head Street
    Sponsored by GLCC of Key West and NOW
    John Andola, jandola@hotmail.com, 305-849-0379
  • Washington, D.C.
    6:30 PM
    Dupont Circle Park
    Lara Martin, lsm4u1982@hotmail.com

Updated by Trish on 4/13

Human Rights Network Perpetuates Bad “Reportage” of Ryan Skipper’s Murder

Buck Banks

You’d think something called Human Rights Headlines would be more concerned with the truth. I mean the thing quotes Montesquieu at the top of the page: “An injustice committed against anyone is a threat to everyone.” Well, on behalf of everyone, let me just say, Thanks, Human Rights Headlines, for the latest injustice perpetrated on the late Ryan Skipper and, by extension, everyone.

Thanks, Human Rights Headlines, for the latest injustice perpetrated on the late Ryan Skipper and, by extension, everyone.

Posted on the site is a “story” “bylined” Janvieve Williams that “reports” the facts of Skipper’s murder and the subsequent arrest of his alleged killers. But Ms. Williams didn’t write the piece. She didn’t interview anyone for it. She merely cobbled together newspaper reports — complete with the lies, smears and distortions Pensito Review has been pointing out in coverage of the murder for weeks — without attributing her sources.

And you wonder why weblobgs don’t get no respect.

Human Rights Headlines just regurgitated the bad reporting that’s been done by the Lakeland Ledger and other outlets in covering this case, compounding the inaccuracies and distortions by lumping them all together on one long rambling document. This headline thing is the work of something called Human Rights Network, which describes itself this way:

Underlying all human rights work in the United States is a commitment to challenge the pernicious belief that the United States is inherently superior to other countries of the world, and that neither the US government nor the US rights movements have anything to gain from the domestic application of human rights. Rather, in the view of a growing number of US activists, the US government should no longer be allowed to shield itself from accountability to human rights norms and the US civil, women’s, worker, immigrant, lgbt, prisoner and other rights movements stand to benefit, perhaps now more than ever, from an end to US impunity in this regard.

Such an avowedly internationalist and multi-lateralist stance has not been common to domestic rights advocacy in the United States since the Cold War. Its current resurgence in US rights work, from the death penalty to economic justice, signals a fundamental shift in the politics of US rights activism.

The resonance of human rights with progressive trends in US rights work ensures its increasing relevance to domestic activists. The movement for human rights in the United States is here and plans to stay.

After reading that, I’m kind of glad they didn’t write a real story about the Skipper murder because they probably would have really screwed it up. I can’t even tell what they supposedly do or stand for.

In the hope that they will remove their inaccurate and distorted piece of copyright infringement from the Web, I’m going to post a comment on the site with a link back to this post and Pensito Review’s other coverage of the Ryan Skipper murder. Maybe then they’ll do the human right thing.

Ryan Skipper Press: With Friends Like These…

Trish

One of the nation’s top gay focused web sites has smeared Ryan Skipper, a young Florida gay man recently murdered in what police labeled a hate crime. In fact, what queerty.com said makes the local sheriff and news media — blasted by us and many others for repeating the suspect’s version of events before investigating — look like paragons of open-mindedness and circumspection.

At no time does Pensito Review accept sources at face value and pass them along, unexamined. And if you ever catch us doing that, we’ll strap on some balls and admit it.

According to friends, Ryan Keith Skipper, 25, went cruising Wahneta, Florida, for some quick and easy sex when he came across 21-year old Joseph Bearden. Testing his luck, Skipper offered Bearden a ride, which Bearden accepted. Skipper then took him to his house, where they smoked a bit of ganj and, according to police reports, chatted about using Skipper’s computer expertise to copy checks.

Skipper and Bearden then apparently took Skipper’s laptop and headed off to meet Bearden’s friend, 20-year old William David Brown Jr. From what police gather, Bearden and Brown, nestled in Skipper’s car, then stabbed Skipper 20 times before tossing his body on the side of the road.

That would make a good movie but it bears little resemblance to what actually happened.

Not a single one of Ryan’s friends has said he was cruising that night. All have said they know of no time Ryan ever looked for sex with strangers.

Ryan’s brother, who is in the computer/internet/all that stuff business, was preparing a laptop to send him from his home in Las Vegas but had not yet shipped.

At the time of his murder, Ryan owned a desktop computer, but no printer and no scanner.

Ryan has no history of criminal activity beyond some underage personal consumption charges related to pot. He was a student at a technical college and held a steady job at Sunglass Hut.

Though they jumped to the conclusion expected by rabid anti-gay evangelicals, Queerty is refusing to apologize. They blame their sources and then, worse, their defenders hide behind the excuse they are a blog, not a legitimate news outlet.

In this story, we passed along the Associated Press story…

Skipper’s friends, meanwhile, wrote us an angry note insisting that not only do we have the story wrong, we’re defaming this boy’s name: a stunning allegation, if you ask us…

Rest assured…that was not our intent. We simply report the news as we find it. We’re sure Skipper would be pleased to know that you’re keeping his good name alive. We must say, however, that we find nothing wrong with cruising for sex and, thus, cannot agree that we assassinated anyone’s character. Regardless, we’re sorry for your loss. It’s always upsetting when people are murdered – especially when it’s a senseless a crime as the one that took Skipper. We’ll be sure to keep our virtual eyes on any and all developments in this convoluted and multi-faceted story.

The only convoluted stories are the ones coming from the suspects. But George Bush himself could not have sidestepped this any better. Next they’ll be saying, “mistakes were made.”

“It’s always upsetting when people are murdered.” Yeah, don’t you hate that? What a bother. It probably happens to them all the time, which is how they know it’s “always upsetting.” Sheesh.

That they find nothing wrong with cruising is not the point, SINCE RYAN WASN’T DOING THAT ANYWAY.

We didn’t know Ryan when we read the first reports of his death, but we have half a brain and could see that the suspects’ version wasn’t adding up. Since then, we have spoken to his brother, scoured the web for updates, and are in the process of speaking to his friends. At no time does Pensito Review accept sources at face value and pass them along, unexamined. And if you ever catch us doing that, we’ll strap on some balls and admit it.

Ryan’s family has been cautioned that capital murder trials can take up to two years to prepare. If this is the kind of support they can expect from the “good guys,” it’s going to be a very long 24 months.

Official Misstatements about Ryan Skipper’s Murder Have Been Propagated in the Media

Jon Ponder

One of the saddest aspects about the aftermath of Ryan Skipper’s murder is that no one outside his friends and family seems to care about the heinous manner in which he was killed.

“I want to identify with the people that I serve. I want them to identify with me. And I want to be blatantly honest with them. I don’t intentionally say anything that will impugn anyone other than a real criminal, and then I’m not too concerned about that.”
— Sheriff Grady Judd, March 18, 2007

Neither the governor nor the attorney general in Florida — both of whom are Republicans — has expressed concern about the fact that Skipper’s murder has been labeled a hate crime. National gay organizations have been largely mute, and coverage in the local and national gay press has been very slim, especially considering the brutality of his murder.

Sheriff’s Assertions Were Based on Killers’ Statements

It is likely that the lack of outrage stems from a series of misstatements to the media at the outset of the investigation that have been attributed to Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd and others in his office. On the face of it, the motivation for making these statements appears to be bigotry toward gay people.

On Friday, March 16, two days after Skipper’s body was discovered, the local newspaper, The Ledger, reported:

Skipper, 25, was driving around Eloise late Tuesday night looking to pick up someone when he met [his all edged killer, Joseph] Bearden, whom he took back to his home in Winter Haven, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

The next day, the paper ran a quote from Sheriff Judd that sounded like it could have been the basis of the earlier reporting:

“What we do know is that Ryan was out looking to pick up someone that evening,” Judd said.

Elsewhere, the full quote has been given as:

“What we do know is that Ryan was looking for someone to pick up that evening. And unfortunately for Ryan, he picked up the wrong person.” [Emphasis added.]

In fact — and as we have said in other coverage of this story — Sheriff Judd did not “know” this. It was immediately obvious to my colleague Trish, who reported the story here on March 18, that, since the victim was dead and could not speak for himself, the only source for this information had to have been the alleged killers.

But the slander against Ryan Skipper did not stop there. In its coverage on March 17, The Ledger published the trawling-for-sex allegation as well as three additional completely unsubstantiated statements:

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