The attack on
three patrons at a gay bar was a crime against the entire
city of New Bedford, Mass., the mayor said at a candlelight
vigil held outside the nightspot. Mayor Scott Lang
joined about 150 people Thursday night outside Puzzles
Lounge, where a young man dressed all in black went on
a rampage with a hatchet and a gun earlier in the day,
wounding three patrons, including one critically.
Police said the attack appeared to be a hate crime.
Authorities searched for 18-year-old Jacob D.
Robida, who is wanted on charges of attempted murder,
assault, and civil rights violations. He was still at
large early Friday, police said. Under heavy police
presence, residents and local politicians denounced
the attack at the vigil.
Gays have the right to gather in safety and
without fear of violence, said Andrew Pollock,
president of the Marriage Equality Coalition of the
South Seacoast. "When you take the rights away from one
group, you are dehumanizing that group and making them
more vulnerable to violence," he said.
According to court papers, Robida's mother told
police that he briefly stopped by the house less than
an hour after the brawl and was bleeding from the
head. Officers found Nazi regalia in Robida's bedroom and
anti-Semitic writings on the wall. "Obviously we have a man
who's dangerous, who's not rational, and he has
weapons," prosecutor Paul Walsh Jr. said.
A bartender said it was around midnight when a
teen wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and black pants
walked into Puzzles, a gay nightspot in this historic
seaport city of 94,000 people about 50 miles from Boston.
He flashed an apparently fake ID and ordered a drink, then
asked if the place was a gay bar and was told it was,
said the bartender, who asked to be identified only by
his first name, Phillip, because of fear for his safety.
The bartender said the teen finished his drink
and walked back to where two men were playing pool. He
shoved one of them to the ground, then pulled a
hatchet from his sweatshirt and began swinging at the man's
head, cutting him, Phillip said. Other patrons tackled the
man, sending the hatchet sliding across the floor, the
bartender said. Then the attacker pulled a gun, shot a
man, and then fired another bullet into the chest of a
patron who was leaving the bathroom, the bartender said.
He then ran off into the night. Police recovered
the hatchet and found a knife outside. The knife was
apparently not used in the attack.
Authorities identified the injured men as Robert
Perry, Alex Taylor, and Luis Rosado. One has a gunshot
wound to the chest, another a gunshot wound to the
back and severe cuts to his face, and a third suffered
multiple cuts, police said. They would not specify which man
suffered which injuries. All three victims remained
hospitalized. Police said one was in critical
condition but would not say which man.
A family friend who answered the door at
Robida's home said his mother had no comment. Some
patrons said there has been occasional low-level
harassment at the bar over the years. Puzzles has been
egged, cars parked outside have had windows smashed,
and teenagers have thrown rocks and bricks at the
building's facade for years, said Dan Sheteron, 51, who
lives upstairs. Antigay graffiti often defaces the building.
"This doesn't surprise me," Sheteron said of the
attack. "It was either going to be this or a firebomb
through the front window." (AP)
