News
2007-02-24
Victim, 72, of
Detroit hate beating dies
Andrew Anthos,
whose dream was to light up the Michigan state capitol
dome in red, white, and blue, died Friday of injuries
s
Andrew Anthos,
whose dream was to light up the Michigan state capitol
dome in red, white, and blue, died Friday of injuries
sustained in a February 13 hate beating.
Though Anthos,
72, was visiting with friends as recently as Wednesday,
his condition declined rapidly in the past two days and he
was administered the last rites late Thursday in
Detroit Receiving Hospital.
The attack, which
left Anthos paralyzed from the neck down and virtually
without speech, shocked the gay community, which reached out
to his family with love and support—as well as
anger and a resolve for justice.
"So many people
want to pay their respects," Anthos's niece, Athena
Fedenis, told Gay.com on Friday, adding that she considers
the gay people who've offered to help "like family. He
will not have died in vain."
Anthos, known to
loved ones as "Buddy," was gay and biracial, being of
half-black, half-white ancestry, Fedenis said. He had been
riding the bus that evening from the public library back to
his Detroit apartment when another passenger annoyed
with his singing approached him and asked if he was
gay.
Anthos left the
bus and helped a wheelchair-bound fellow passenger
through the snow, only to be followed by the assailant, who
hit him in the back of the head with a metal pipe and
fled.
Washington,
D.C.–based gay rights group Human Rights
Campaign has offered to pay for Anthos's funeral,
Fedenis said.
The
wheelchair-using friend was able to provide some information
in what now becomes a homicide investigation, Detroit
police detective Sgt. Ryan Lovier said. But police
still seek potential witnesses aboard the bus, which
would have arrived at the stop near Detroit's Windsor Towers
apartments roughly between 6 and 6:30 p.m.
The assailant is
described as a light-skinned black man, no more than 23
years old, about 5 foot 7 and 150 pounds, wearing a dark
coat and pants, Lovier said. (Barbara Wilcox, The
Advocate)
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