Here is an update on the young lesbian girl, Sakia Gunn, who was brutally murdered by a man who violently took her life because she refused his advances, and because she was a lesbian. The filmmaker, Mr. Charles B. Brack, has created a documentary of the trial of her murderer, Richard McCullough. Mr. Brack’s camera was the only one allowed in the courtroom to film this documentary.
Many people often compare Ms. Gunn’s murder to that of Matthew Shepherd, the young homosexual who was tortured and murdered by a group of gay-haters, in Laramie, WY. But, I do not consider both cases as having been given the same merit and attention (read “national outcry“). Say the name of Matthew Shepherd, and millions of people will probably know of whom you speak; but, say Ms. Gunn’s name, and many millions more will draw a blank.
The fact is that Ms. Gunn was a woman of color, most notably, a young Black lesbian woman, and in this country if you are Black, a woman, a lesbian, not rich/well-off/affluent, then you are devalued at the get-go. Where was Act-Up http://www.actupny.org/ for Ms. Gunn when this case was coming to trial? Why did they not speak up for her? Is it because she did not fit their idea of a gay human being? By their behaviour, Act-Up projects that even in the so-called gay community, color still matters. Add to the fact that Matthew Sheperd’s case and race had a great bearing on how the news media outlets—local, national, and even foreign—reported on his case continuously, as well as the difference in the communities these crimes occurred in: Matthew in a Mid-West small town, and Sakia, in a crime ridden inner city—-had a profound influence on the case of Matthew as opposed to the case on Sakia.
That Ms. Gunn’s case if so unknown to many people is not surprising. As some commentors around the internet have said: the elephant in the room is race, and if you are not White, male or female,you will be relegated to being a footnote, if even that, when you suffer from a brutal crime the way Ms. Gunn did.
“Twenty years” for Ms. Gunn’s savage murder?
There are people doing time for 1-ounce of crack cocaine, than this monster received for the hateful destruction of Ms. Gunn’s life. So, McCullough had no previous record, but he still took a human life. The message this judge sent is that it is okay to murder a young lesbian, don’t worry, at the least you will get maybe 20 years because she obviously had no value as a human being. That thus judge rendered such a piss-poor sentence should be cause for him to be removed from the bench for his lack of regard for Ms. Gunn’s life.
Then again, Ms. Gunn was not the right color, not the right gender, nor the right sexual orientation.
The (in)justice she received in the court that tried this case, speaks loud and clear.
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February 18, 2009, 9:30 am
Film Examines a Newark Hate Crime
By Sewell Chan
A documentary recounts the 2003 killing of Sakia Gunn, 15, a lesbian high school student in Newark.
In 2003, Sakia Gunn, a 15-year-old lesbian high school student, was
fatally stabbed in downtown Newark by a man who had approached her in the street and made sexual advances to her and her friends, which they declined.
The case, which was prosecuted as a
hate crime, drew widespread attention in gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities, though considerably less news coverage than that of
Matthew Shepard, the 21-year-old gay college student who was abducted, beaten, tied to a pole and left to freeze to death in Laramie, Wyo., in 1998.
A documentary released last year,
“Dreams Deferred: The Sakia Gunn Film Project,” offers an emotional examination of the Gunn case. The filmmaker, Charles B. Brack, obtained permission to record the trial of Richard McCullough, the girl’s killer. His was the only camera in the courtroom — a fact that, at a
screening of the film at the Museum of Modern Art on Saturday evening, Mr. Brack called “disgraceful.”
The film weaves trial footage with interviews; one of the earliest scenes depicts Mr. McCullough’s defense lawyer citing his relatively thin criminal history — a juvenile conviction for possession of marijuana — as a mitigating factor for the purposes of sentencing.
Some of the film’s most wrenching scenes are of Valencia Bailey, Ms. Gunn’s best friend, in whose car Ms. Gunn bled to death on their way to a hospital; of Anthony Hall, a cousin of the victim, who described her as an A student who enjoyed playing basketball and did not cause her family any trouble; and of Latona Gunn, Ms. Gunn’s mother, who tells Mr. McCullough in the courtroom, “Your rage has caused me 23 months of sleepless nights.”
Thelma Gunn, the victim’s grandmother, says of Ms. Gunn and her friends: “All they wanted was to go home and get in their beds. Her bed turned out to be a coffin.”
Ms. Gunn’s death had a galvanizing effect on gay activists, and the film includes interviews with several: Laquetta Nelson, co-founder of the Newark Pride Alliance; Clarence Patton of the New York City Anti-Violence Project; and Bran Fenner of Fierce, a coalition of gay minority young people.
Monika Graff for The New York Times Shanese Winston, 17, left, and Audrey Servance, 17, attended a vigil for their friend Sakia Gunn as officials observed a No Name-Calling Day on May 11, 2004, a year after Ms. Gunn was killed.
A candlelight vigil held in
Newark a year after the killing, in which dozens of community members gathered at the corner of Broad and Market Streets, where the crime occurred, highlighted the extent to which the gay population mobilized after the slaying — and sought the support of
straight allies. At the vigil,
Cory A. Booker, then a councilman and now the mayor of Newark, angrily asked why “there was not a national outcry” over the crime.
As part of a plea agreement, Judge Paul J. Vichness of Essex County Superior Court sentenced Mr. McCullough in 2005 to 20 years in prison for aggravated manslaughter, aggravated assault and bias intimidation — less than the maximum penalty of 25 years.
The judge said he considered Mr. McCullough’s lack of a previous criminal record a mitigating factor, but rejected the defense’s arguments that the circumstances leading up to the crime were unlikely to recur and that Mr. McCullough was unlikely to commit a crime again.
The defense had initially argued that Ms. Gunn fell on Mr. McCullough’s knife during or after a scuffle, a version of events that prosecutors and Ms. Gunn’s friends disputed.
“I don’t know why you didn’t walk away from this,” the judge told Mr. McCullough.
Mr. Brack, who grew up in Chicago and manages operations at
Third World Newsreel, an activist filmmaker collective founded in 1967, said he hoped the film would raise awareness about Ms. Gunn and her life and death.
“It’s about access,” he said when asked why the case had received less attention than that of Matthew Shepard. “Lack of access to the media.”
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Ann
Exactly! Her killer deserves life in prison, not 20 years then he go out and kill another human being because she’s Black and Lesbian.
Society always devalue Black life, especially Black female life. That’s a travesty here.
Stephanie B.