San Diego Gay Man Savagely Attacked

A gay San Diego man was attacked and severely beaten by a group of people in an alley near his home while he walked his dogs.

Jacob Harshbarger encountered the group of alleged attackers in the early morning hours of Oct. 31. Harshbarger said it was after 3:00 a.m. and he was walking his dog after having returned home from a bar when he encountered the group of five people, which included three men and two women. One of the men launched the attack when he spotted the suggestive slogan emblazoned on Harshbarger's shirt. The punching and kicking commenced with words to the effect that Harshbarger was a "fucking faggot," reported San Diego Gay & Lesbian News.com on Nov. 1.

The openly gay Harshbarger, 32, said that he could not recall the entire attack, but that he remembered on assailant inviting others to "come over here and kick the fairy." Harshbarger also recalled anti-gay epithets such as "homo" being hurled at him as he lay on the ground being kicked in the face by the men. The women, he said, tried to get the men to stop the attack; in response, one of the men delivered a kick to one of the women.

One of Harshbarger's neighbors reported hearing a "big bang" on one wall of her home; the theory is that Harshbarger being slammed into the side of the house by the attackers caused the sound. When the neighbor, accompanied by her son, came out to investigate, she found Harshbarger on the ground in the alley.

Harshbarger suffered a concussion and required 13 stitches. The attack was so brutal that he also sustained bruising to the back of one eye. Harshbarger called the attack a hate crime.

"We think of San Diego and North Park as being progressive and safe," said a friend of Harshbarger's, GLBT equality advocate Fernando Lopez. "It's devastating that someone would do this to Jacob, or any member of our community."

State law defines hate crimes as being motivated by, among other things, sexual orientation. Even so, a responding officer, J. Hebdon, told the media that the brutal attack may not be treated as a hate crime, despite Harshbarger's account that the violence was seemingly touched off by his shirt and accompanied by anti-gay slurs. Hebdon pointed out that no witnesses saw or heard the alleged exchange or directly observed the attack, and noted that when she responded to the call Harshbarger's hooded sweatshirt was zipped up over the t-shirt so that the message on the shirt was not visible.

The police do have a lead, however, in having recovered a cell phone that was dropped at the spot where the assault occurred.

Harshbarger said that about a week before, there was an attempted break-in at his home. "Whether or not this was a hate a crime, I want to make sure we are not [disregarding] the possibility," he told the press. "I definitely recall there being homophobic words."

A Nov. 1 story in the San Diego Union-Tribune said that Harshbarger's first statement, made when he was in an ambulance en route to the hospital, did not reference any anti-gay epithets. That detail emerged in a later police interview. Harshbarger attributed this to his having been "out of it" while in the ambulance.

"We just don't have a lot of information," said Sgt. Frank Hoerman.

In the aftermath of Proposition 8, incidents of verbal abuse and vandalism by angry GLBTs were held up by anti-gay bloggers as evidence of gay lawlessness. But one video not referenced by anti-gay pundits showed San Diego Pride executive director Ron deHarte being assaulted on June 6, 2009, for at least a minute and a half by a young man as deHarte participated in San Diego County's "Equality Torch Relay." The attack took place in the town of Lemon Grove.

Before the torch could reach deHarte, who was waiting for it near the large lemon statue in Lemon Grove, the attacker struck. DeHarte talked about his experience, saying, "I was waiting for the Equality Torch Relay to come by Main and Broadway and standing in front of the famous overly life-size lemon, and [holding] a rainbow flag big as day" at the time of the attack.

DeHarte described the kicks and blows he received, as well as the alleged assailant's homophobic language. "He started whaling on me and tried to take the flag away and made it very clear he didn't think I should be there: 'Get out of here. What do you think you're doing? You need to get the fuck out of here.' "

Only later did deHarte realize his lips were cut and swollen; at the time, he was trying to step away from the alleged assailant, who could be seen in the video continually moving toward him and lashing out. "All the while, he was grabbing at the rainbow flag and trying to take it away from me," deHarte said. "And he was kicking me and slapping. He hit me good a couple of times." Added deHarte, "I got the side of his fist the first time he hit me, then I think he got my lower jaw on another time. He kicked me a few times.

"I wasn't bleeding or anything," deHarte added. "It certainly hurt. I certainly had soreness as the day went on, and this morning when I woke up, I realized my upper lip was swollen and the inside of my cheek was cut up."

Peace and calm were the order of the day at the overwhelming majority of the hundreds of anti-Proposition 8 rallies that took place around the nation in the wake of the ballot initiative, which revoked the marriage rights of California's gay and lesbian families. So too "Equality Torch Day," according to a report in the San Diego Union Tribune on June 7; the attack against deHarte was the only disruption.

Media reports at the time did not name the assailant, but noted that he was already wanted on a weapons violation and for being in violation of a restraining order.