Lavender Line: Articles & Databases

Capstone by Jarrett Lyons from The CUNY Graduate School of Journalism

by Katie Honan from DNAInfo.com

NY1

Time Out New York

Julio Rivera and Daniel Doyle were two young men with only one thing in common. They were both in the same wrong place one warm summer night in Queens, around 3 A.M. on July 2, 1990, when Mr. Rivera was punched, clubbed and hammered in a darkened Jackson Heights schoolyard and Mr. Doyle stabbed him to death.

Julio Rivera, his friends say, was the most improbable gay martyr -- a Hispanic drug user from Queens who lived on the far fringes of gay society.

2 Accomplices Guilty of Murder In 'Gay Bashing' Case in Queens: CITY After Killer Testifies, 2 Accomplices Are Found Guilty of Gay Man's Murder in Queens 'It sends a message to everybody in the city,' a gay man says.

Denis Taska leaned over the horseshoe bar in the Magic Touch in Jackson Heights yesterday afternoon and with the bartender, Tom Grimaldi, rattled off the names of men they knew who had been beaten for no other reason than that they were gay.

"Justice for Julio" was the refrain in Jackson Heights six years ago after Julio Rivera, a 29-year-old bartender, was lured into a gay cruising area on 37th Avenue by assailants who beat him and stabbed him to death. For months, gay organizers prodded the authorities to handle the case with a greater sense of urgency.

In the early-morning darkness of July 2, a 29-year-old homosexual, Julio Rivera, was stabbed to death after being beaten on the head with a hammer in a Queens schoolyard.