Another Case Of Mob Lynching

Lesbian Couple Beaten By Mob in Chicago; One Suspect Arrested

by unfinishedlives

Terry Glover, 24, charged with anti-lesbian hate crimes and robbery in West Side Chicago neighborhood [Chicago PD photo].

Chicago, Illinois - A mob of 10 men assaulted a lesbian couple, yelling anti-lesbian slurs as they pressed their attack on Saturday, July 6.  The Chicago Tribune reports that a single suspect, Terry Glover, 24, has been apprehended, and is being held in a Cook County jail on $1 million bail for two counts of felony hate crime and two counts of felony robbery.  The two women, aged 23 and 25, were robbed and beaten late in the night in the West Side neighborhood of Austin.  Nine other suspects remain at large.  

In personal accounts of the harrowing attack, the women, who wish to remain unidentified, say that their assailants yelled that no "bitch dykes" were going to walk through their neighborhood.  The assault, they say, was initiated by Glover who was a former school classmate of one of the women.  The couple allege they were taunted for their sexual orientation, knocked to the ground, and kicked while they were down.  "It was punches, kicks, everything being thrown at us," one of the victims told the Tribune. "We just held onto each other until somebody said, 'Here come the police.'"  One of the women had her shirt ripped from her body during the attack, and the cash and cell phones of both of them were taken.  The mob ran at the approach of police officers.  

By Monday, Glover was in custody, and was hauled before a Cook County judge, according to DNAinfo Chicago. 

The younger of the two women told the Tribune, "It really shouldn’t matter who I like or who I love. I should be able to walk the streets wherever I want to go and talk to whoever I want to talk to."  

Meanwhile, in the wake of the Supreme Court decisions of last month, the violence against LGBTQ people in America continues, apparently unabated. Rick Garcia, policy director of The Civil Rights Agenda, a Chicago-based LGBTQ rights organization, told Tribune reporters, "We see cases like this all the time, all over the city and all over the state.  It shows that animosity toward lesbian and gay people is just below the surface. We think we've made such big gains, but right below the surface we see this animosity and violence."