Neighborhood has Peaceful Gay Event; Crazy People Show and Threaten to Rape Women; Cops Do Nothing

[trigger warning]

At the moment when I walked into Gay Day this past Saturday, it was surreal, like some kind of charming French romance. A friend of mine playing soft acoustic guitar, neighbors sipping on cantaloupe mint smoothies from a local food truck, children and adults playing with ribbon streams, gay couples sharing affectionate moments without harassment, peaceful, summer dialogue. How ridiculously, dreamily nice.

But, OH, we couldn’t have that for long. A group of protestors showed up to harass from the other side of a chain link fence. They came armed with Bibles. And it wasn’t the usual, “repent or go to Hell.” Rather, it was the decree that all races would war against each other and the losers would have their women ravished. Which, according to one of the vitrolic protestors meant, “you ass is gonna get raped.”

A female attendee took this video. Fair warning: It’s graphic, it’s disgusting and it will make you want to overturn a table at the very least. At one point, the guy on the left describes how he will rape the camerawoman and how she will enjoy it. He uses the Bible to back this up.

Authorities were notified. According to attendees, they did nothing because they do not respond to verbal threats. I can’t help but think that if he had been vividly describing a terrorist attack he was plotting, the response would have been different.

Also, I’m pretty sure these guys are part of the same group that protests frequently on the corner of Fulton and Division. So, do they threaten to rape women passing by there as well? I think it’s worth an investigation, considering that’s the corner that sits at the very CENTER of our city.

[edit: below the video link, I've posted the comments from the original poster of this video telling how this altercation even came about... it's gets sicker.]

“Last night after Gay Day I walked over to my friend and immediately got called out by this person I refuse to refer to as a “man” protesting on the other side of the fence. He pointed at me and said “& you with the hula hoops, I like you…I am going to rape you.” He went on about how dare I shamelessly go outside of my husband’s house dressed the way I was (lolPS:I’mnotmarried). I started videotaping and he continued to say vulgar things about how he was going to rape me (and I know I was not the only woman there who was threatened like this). He used the Bible to support his bogus preaching, saying that the Lord says this day will come when he will get to rape me and he will ‘enjoy doing it.’ That I will become like his car, like one of his possessions and other things that I don’t even want to repeat that I got in this video.

I called the cops and while we were waiting for them to show up he and his people also went on to say that they memorized our license plate no. and would find us to kill us and rape me. When the police showed up I stood back to see that they weren’t going to do ANYTHING about this. They were also uninterested in seeing the video I had. They said something along the lines of if we weren’t there by the protestors then it wouldn’t have happened and it was our fault for feeding into it. So I guess next time somebody is making rape & death threats I’m just supposed to allow them to do it with no consequences, right?

I understand Freedom of Speech, but I didn’t know that rape and death threats were OKAY. The sorry excuses for officers that showed up pretty much just gave these people the power to continue making these threats. I see these guys around the city a lot and they can keep preaching their nonsense, but thanks to the GRPD the threats and sexual harrassment will just continue…..”