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April 11, 2007

Activists seek justice in Anthos case

Activists seek justice in Anthos case

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, hoping to prod Detroit police into reopening the case, posted a $25,000 reward Tuesday for information on the circumstances surrounding the death of gay senior citizen Andrew Anthos.

Michigan's Triangle Foundation, meanwhile, planned to send volunteers and staff Tuesday night to canvass people living near where Anthos was found, hoping to find witnesses to the alleged crime.

Wayne County's medical examiner said last month that Anthos's February 23 death was from injuries probably suffered in a fall that exacerbated his degenerative spinal condition and that the evidence did not necessarily support reports that he had been attacked.

Detroit police then closed the case.

Relatives, relying on independent accounts from a witness and from Anthos himself, say he was beaten by a young man who called him a gay slur, followed him off a city bus, and hit him in the back of the head with what Anthos thought was a pipe.

"If you want to say he wasn't murdered, OK. But you can't say he wasn't attacked, that it wasn't a hate crime," Anthos's cousin Athena Fedenis told the Associated Press.

Fedenis, who talked to Anthos in the hospital, said he was trying to help a friend whose wheelchair had gotten stuck in a snow bank when he was attacked.

The wheelchair user did not see the attack but provided a description of a man at the scene that police used to develop a sketch of a suspect, Detroit police spokesman Leon Rahmaan told reporters.

To view a large version of the police sketch, go to www.tri.org/violence/anthos_killer_sketch_lg.jpg. (Barbara Wilcox, The Advocate)

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