No Class

Student faces prison after anti-gay attack

Comments (0) By R. SCOTT MOXLEY Wednesday, Sep 13 2006

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•Yelling anti-gay slurs, Joseph Daniel Velasco, 22, violently attacked a gay man in Anaheim and received two years in prison.

Last year, the Weekly featured the case of Gregory Michael Pisarcik, who savagely tortured a Tustin gay man and then bludgeoned him to death. Pisarcik mutilated the victim by writing "FAGS DIE" on the man's back and shoving a champagne bottle into his rectum. He told police after his capture that he "hates fags." A judge sentenced Pisarcik, 28, to life in prison.

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In recent years, Republican county Supervisors Jim Silva and Chris Norby have attempted to kill a $300,000 annual taxpayer subsidy to the local Human Relations Commission (HRC), which works to prevent hate crimes. HRC reports that the majority of victims in Orange County are gay, African-American or Jewish, although they've found a recent increase in attacks on Latinos. In Costa Mesa, Mayor Allan R. Mansoor—who doubles as a sheriff's deputy in the jail—helped eliminate his city's commission, arguing that "human relations is not a government responsibility."

rscottmoxley@ocweekly.com