Prejudiced Police Officer Should Be Removed from position.

  • by: Sara N.
  • recipient: Cayey Police Department

The body of gay teenager, Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado was discovered on the edge of a road in Cayey, Puerto Rico last Thursday, with the police investigator suggesting that the 19 year old deserved it %u201Cbecause people who lead this type of lifestyle need to be aware that this will happen%u201D.



Dreaming of working in the fashion and beauty sector, Jorge was planning to start college to train for his dream job in January, but was found this last week burnt, decapitated and dismembered only a few miles from Caguas, the town in which he was living.  A much loved member of the gay community in the area, Mercado%u2019s death has obviously been met with great sadness by the community, something which is tinged  with further disappointment because of the fact that it is highly unlikely his death will be treated as a homophobic attack seeing as Puerto Rico has never in it%u2019s history classified a murder as any form of hate crime.



Luis Rivera, one of Jorge%u2019s best friends said that they first began to worry about Jorge when he didn%u2019t turn up to the Krash de Santurce club as he and his friends have planned and they couldn%u2019t get hold of him on his cell phone, with the sad realisation of what had happened occuring when  he read about the discovery of a body with features matching Jorge in the paper.



Pedro Julio Serrano, a leading human rights activist has spoken of his sadness at the death of Jorge,  with his family not yet feeling ready to speak out. (quoted from Queeried http://www.queeried.com/gay-hate-crime-murder-of-puerto-rican-teen-sees-police-announce-he-deserved-it/)

Tell this police officer that no one deserves to be killed, decaptitated, dismembered or burned no matter what there lifestyle. That every murder victim deserves justice and that he deserves to br reprimanded, demoted or removed from public service. An individual this prejudiced will not be able to set aside his own beliefs to protect the innocent and to prosecute the accused to the fullest extent of the law.

We the undersigned are appaled by the statements,

"'Este tipo de personas cuando se meten a esto y salen a la calle saben que esto les puede pasar.'

I speak Spanish fluently, so let me give you a rough translation:

'Someone like that, who does those kind of things, and goes out in public, knows full well that this might happen to him.'" (quoted from Care2 article posted by Steve W.)
 

made by the police officer leading the investigation into the murder of Jorge Lopez. His statements are offensive to the GLBT community and the world at large. Someone with these prejudices that are incapable of setting aside these biases, such as this police officer shows are incapable of protecting all of their citizens and will not work their hardest to find the guilty culprits. Although we are thrilled to know that the suspect has been found, future victims and citizens must be protected from this homophobic officer.

No one deserves to have his or her life taken from them and no one deserves to be treated with such disrepect after death. Yes Jorge was gay, but he was also human a teenager with dreams and ideas. His life was robbed from him, by a heartless killer and his memory and honor has been destroyed by this police officer's disrespect and inappropriate comments.

Cayey Police Department do what is right and punish this officer for his disrespect and innappropriate comments towards the victim of a crime, we ask that he at the very least undergo tolerabcy trainging, be  reprimanded, demoted or fired.
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