RIVERSIDE - They will gather on Friday night to remember Jeffery Owens and promise never to forget why he died.

One year ago this month, Owens was stabbed after he and his friends got into a fight with five men in a parking lot behind two bars on University Avenue.

The 40-year-old Moreno Valley man later died at a hospital, where he was given more than 100 times the prescribed amount of an anti-clotting drug. Hospital officials from Riverside County Regional Medical Center could not be reached to comment by telephone on Wednesday, but they said in April that they had made changes in medication procedures to prevent overdoses.

Owens' death galvanized the gay community, its leaders calling the stabbing a hate crime. In January, a judge disagreed, dropping the hate-crime allegation while the murder case against the five men involved in the attack continues.

On Friday evening, behind The Menagerie, a popular gay bar in downtown Riverside, Owens' friends will meet in a candlelight vigil. They will celebrate their friend's life, said bar owner David St. Pierre, and pledge to strengthen relationships among all groups in the community, gay or straight.

St. Pierre said a bronze plaque eventually will mark the site as a permanent memorial to Owens.

"We're coming out to remember Jeffery," he said. "We want to make sure that this doesn't ever happen again."

St. Pierre said he's deeply disappointed the hate-crime charge was dropped. In January, Riverside County Superior Court Judge Patrick Magers ruled the cause of the assault was "more of a mutual combat situation" between the defendants and Owens and his friends.

Community members urged prosecutors to refile the hate-crime charges, but the district attorney's office declined, saying that the judge's ruling was legally sound.

"We need to keep the voice out there, that this was a hate crime and we can't tolerate hate," said Shelley Brayton, who helped spread the word about the vigil.

A trial-readiness hearing in the case is scheduled June 13. The trial is pending.

Through Owens' death has grown a new relationship between the gay community and law enforcement, said St. Pierre, who is gay. Differences in lifestyles are respected, and those who once felt ostracized by police now feel they have a place to turn when a hate crime is committed, St. Pierre said.

"It takes an incident like this to really make people think," said St. Pierre, who is running for City Council.

The vigil is in part a kind of healing for the gay community, Human Relations Commission Chairwoman Chani Beeman said. Attacks such as the one against Owens can sometimes break apart a community, prompting questions of whether a victim brought the crime upon himself or herself or whether an assault was actually a hate crime, said Beeman.

But in Owens' case, the incident pulled all groups together -- religious, gay, straight and others -- into a coalition against hate, she said.

"No one denies it was a hate crime," said Beeman, a board member of the Western Inland Empire Coalition Against Hate.

"It's always important for a community to affirm their commitment to prevent hate crimes."

FBI statistics show that in 2001, there were six reported hate crimes linked to sexual orientation in Riverside County.

Jeff Holland, Owens' partner, said he's hopeful the vigil will remind the community of what happened and how people can come together in support.

"Even recently, we run into people, gay and straight, who say, 'Oh, my God, I didn't realize he was your partner,' " Holland said.

"I think we are really hoping that it (the vigil) will not let Jeffery's memory die."

Reach Michael Coronado at (909) 368-9645 or mcoronado@pe.co

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