After a night of
partying in Oklahoma City, a gay resident returned to
his car outside the Copa nightclub to find that it and
several others had been vandalized. Carber, as the man
prefers to be identified, was with a friend the night
of April 12 when he discovered that the
passenger-side window of his car had been smashed in with a
cement block, which had a note attached to it that
read, "fag." Carber's car was the only one with such a
note, he noted to police.
"They
treated it like a regular car break-in," he told The
Advocate. "The same thing happened to my roommate.
It wasn't in the gay district. His car windows were
smashed in, and things were stolen, and they treated
my case the same way,"
Oklahoma does not
currently have a hate-crimes law, which would result in
enhanced penalties for the alleged vandals if found guilty.
"The way
the cop put it, he was really nice about it, but he said
they didn't take anything, and they understood
that it was a hate crime and would file it as such,
but ultimately it was a car break-in," Carber
said. The Oklahoma City Police Department was unavailable to
speak with The Advocate.
Nick Post, who
owns the Copa and other Oklahoma City night clubs, said
that he was unaware of the vandalism outside his
establishment.
"We've never had any kind of antigay vandalism
as far as I'm aware of since I've been
here," he said. (Natalie Camunas, The
Advocate)
