Tampa Bay Coalition
TBC Eye on GLBT Rights News
by Zeke
February 10, 2002
Brutally Beaten Gay Teen, Sues Brothers
and Their Parents
Four Youths, two
sets of brothers and their parents are being sued in federal. The suit
seeks justice for 17 year old, Kyle Skyock, who is being supported
by a coalition of gay and lesbian groups. Kyle, alleges he was attacked by the four youths and his civil
rights violated because he is gay. With local law
enforcement and 9th Judicial District Attorney Mac Myers, refusing
to believe a crime took place, there was no recourse
to obtain justice from them,
so, the lawsuit was file.
Just about a year to the day gay teen, Kyle
Skyock, 16, was found severely injured lying by roadside. He
had suffered a fractured skull, a black eye, three broken ribs, a
bruise described by an emergency room doctor "like a two-by-four outline" on his
stomach and a burn on his left shoulder. He has told
police that he was assaulted by four boys, two sets of brothers, because he
was gay. Sadly, the police, from day one, refused to investigate this as a
gay bashing or even as an assault. Kyle's blood tests revealed his alcohol
level was twice the legal level and showed marijuana in his system. Police
and the Grand Junction forensic pathologist claim his injuries were
the result of a very drunk teen falling down. However,
hospital staff who treated the teen and the Arapahoe County Coroner
stated Kyle couldn't have received a fractured skull, bruising, a black eye
and three broken ribs in a fall. It's been almost a year and police have still
refused to even conceder what many feel is the obvious
or investigate the possibility such injuries could not occur
from a fall.
Kyle's mother had recalled, as his aunts and
grandmother and she stood by Kyle's bedside looking down at his battered and
beaten body shortly after he was found. "I said, 'One word: Matthew Shepard,' "
said Sharlene Skyock, used the name synonymous with gay hate
crimes, the young gay college student brutally murdered in Wyoming.
"And every single one of them said,
'Yes."
Recollections may be somewhat fuzzy, but, he remembers and
described the events leading up to and the four boys sudden attack.
Kyle says while at the party, the boy
who initially had asked him to go pointed to his four-wheel-drive Bronco-type
vehicle and said, "Let's go." Kyle says he left with the four youths and
got into the back seat.
They headed out of town, heading south towards Interstate
70. Kyle remembered the driver make a call on his cell phone and
wondered who the boy would call, then he got further confused as he
smelled something like fingernail polish.
As they continued driving around, all of a sudden the
vehicle just stopped. At this point, Kyle remembers, he was being
pulled out of the vehicle, thrown to the ground and the four boys started
kicking him, they picked him up and rammed his head into the tailgate of the
vehicle. The boys continued to punched, threw him back in the vehicle and pulled
him out, kicked him again.
During the beating he remembers, "I heard, 'faggot,"' Kyle said.
"I want a turn with the bat! Give it to me. It's my turn, it's my
turn."'
His last recollections were that of being slammed from behind
three times by something hard, into his left shoulder. Kyle said he felt, "a
jolting pain, like electricity".
"Everything turned purple and red and glowing colors and I heard
this buzz," Kyle said.
Then, nothing!
On February 10th., a boy Kyle had gone to school
with in Rifle, asked Kyle if he wanted to go to a party, with him and his
older brother. Did they use the party as a guise, so he and
his brother could lure him to a false sense of security. Then in the
early hours of February 11th., while they were riding around and smoking
pot, the four youths carried out their plan. Without warning they
began to brutally and savagely beat Kyle into unconsciousness, leaving him
for dead along by the roadside of U.S. 6.. It seems whether the attack was
planned or not, will remain to be seen.
Of course, all four boys have denied their
involvement. Police Chief Meisner said, when questioned, the four boys tell a
completely different story of the events of that night and their parents back up
their stories. The boys claim, Kyle left the party without any of them with
him and that was the end of the night, Meisner said.
Police contend they have done a complete and through
investigation. Meisner stated, The physical evidence is consistent, with Kyle's
injuries resulting from a "classic for a fall".
"How can we possibly make the quantum leap to say it was a hate
crime or a bias crime in any way?" Meisner said. "We're bound by fact."
Dr. Rob Kurtzman, the forensic pathologist at Grand Junction's
Community Hospital, is more blunt. Kurtzman said, Kyle was "incredibly
intoxicated," with a blood-alcohol level was two times the legal limit when he
was found Sunday morning. Which means, it was even higher eight hours earlier
when any alleged beating would have occurred.
But, Dr. Kurt Papenfus of Clagett Memorial Hospital in Rifle,
who saw Kyle the morning he was found had a different opinion.
Dr. Papenfus wrote, he had a lack of bruising to his arms
and legs, but had multiple bruises and abrasions centrally located on the chest.
The bruises looked like "direct blows to the chest," he wrote. An "odd square"
on Skyock's stomach appeared to be made by a 2-by-4.
The blistering on his left shoulder is consistent with a burn, Papenfus
wrote, "and one would not expect receiving a burn from a fall off a dirt
embankment." A bed sore wouldn't be blistered but rather have a redness, the
doctor said later.
"When I saw him at the time it looked like an assault," Papenfus
said.
One can only imagine how devastating it was for, Sharlene Skyock
to get that call that Sunday afternoon. When a nurse at St. Mary's Hospital in
Grand Junction asked if she had a son. Sharlene and Mike Skyock, her ex husband,
had already lost their only other child, Jesse, 16, who just eight
months earlier had drowned while swimming at a Harvey Gap State Park
reservoir.
It was hard at first to find out what happened to Kyle Skyock
because he was in and out of consciousness. After being checked at the Rifle
hospital, he was soon transported by Flight for Life to St. Mary's, where he
stayed for a week.
When he recovered sufficiently for his memory to return, the
family pieced together what they believe happened that night.
They think the brothers planned the attack, using the cellphone to perhaps
call someone in another vehicle. The smell of fingernail polish was some kind of
lighter, used to burn a circle on Skyock's left shoulder. Nurses told his mother
that the burn - about the size of the bottom of a coffee mug - was caused by
"flame to flesh."
They believe he was singled out because he looked and acted gay.
"I was the first person to walk though the door with something (his body) to
beat up," Skyock said.
An announcement made by the Ninth Judicial District Attorney,
that no criminal charges will be filed against the four youths Kyle alleges
attacked him. This has outraged Kyle, his family and many gay rights
groups. They all believe the evidence shows this was a blatant gay bashing.
number of gay and human rights groups have offered the family assistance in
obtaining justice and attempted to convince the police and district attorney to
investigate this as a hate crime and to file for charges against the
four youths. However, police and the district attorney have turned a deaf ear to
their requests, insisting Kyle's injuries were due to him falling, period, case
closed.
Kyle attended a news conference at U.S. District Court in
Denver with his mother, Sharlene.
Where Sharlene Skyock said "We're
not doing this to be hateful. We're not after innocent people," adding
"We're doing this to stop the hate."
Michael Brewer, legal director of the Colorado Legal Initiatives
Project, are apart of the lawsuit with Kyle, and represent Kyle, said,
"The lawsuit will allege that the four Rifle youths conspired to deprive Skyock
of his constitutional rights."
Among the other organizations that have joined in the lawsuit
are, the Human Rights Campaign; the Colorado Anti-Violence Program; Equal Rights
Colorado; the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Community Center of Colorado;
and Western Equality, a Grand Junction-based gay and lesbian group.
Resource: The Rocky Mountain News.
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