Liberalism Didn't Kill Paul Broussard

Liberalism Didn't Kill Paul Broussard Rev. Rick Scarborough. East Texas Hate Did! How dare you oppose hate crimes legislation when so many hate crimes are coming out of your own part of Texas. How dare you roast Janet Folger as a "hero" when her Coral Ridge anti gay campaign might have had some influence on the killers of Matthew Shepard. How dare you NOT suport stem cell research to save future young kids - future "Katherines" No Sir Rev. Rick it is not the Liberals who are killing our children!
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From Outsmartmagazine.com - this is the best account of Paul's murder in July 1991. I'd call the President but he never supported hate crimes legislation even while in Texas after this murder and the James Byrd murder. The Worst President in US history is not a great advocate for the victims of hate crimes like Paul and their families.
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On the night of July 4, 1991, Paul Broussard, a 27-year-old gay banker in Houston, and two of his friends, Cary Anderson and Richard Delaunay, were assaulted as they traversed a parking lot in the Montrose area. Their assailants were 10 youths from the Woodlands, an upscale suburb north of Houston. The boys (all but three were only 17, the eldest was 22) had been cruising the Montrose area earlier that evening, harassing those they presumed gay by throwing rocks at them. With their "queer rocks" as they called them, they had already smashed the windshield of a car and hit a passing man in the mouth. When the attackers encountered the three men, they began by asking for the directions to Heaven, a nearby gay nightclub. Upon being told the directions, the boys leapt out of their two cars and assaulted Broussard and his friends with fists, steel-toed boots, two-by-fours studded with nails, and at least one knife. Broussard’s two friends, Delaunay and Anderson, although injured, managed to escape. Broussard, however, was trapped and subjected to a vicious beating.

As they assaulted Broussard, according to Delaunay, the boys were cheering and yelling wildly, roaring like the crowd in a football game. "We were the football," as Delaunay later said. In the end Paul Broussard suffered multiple cuts and abrasions, a puncture by a nail driven through a board, a broken rib, bruised testicles, three stab wounds–and death. As he lay almost unconscious on the ground with his hand raised as if pleading for mercy or for help, two of the assailants rifled his pockets and took his comb as a "souvenir." Then the boys drove off, still yelling and cheering. As they returned to the Woodlands going north up I-45, the two carloads of assailants drove side-by-side down the highway, leaning out of the windows and slapping palms together in noisy "high-fives." They capped off the evening with a pre-dawn breakfast at a Denny’s restaurant. According to later depositions, it was at the Denny’s that Jon Buice showed a knife to some of the others, and bragged that with it he had "stuck the queer."
After being treated by EMS on the spot, Paul Broussard was transported to St. Joseph’s Hospital. Although medical and hospital staff did all they could to save his life, in the end the bleeding from the wounds could not be stemmed. Broussard died in the hospital an agonizing eight-and-a-half hours later. Nancy Rodriguez, Broussard’s mother, flew into Houston the next day from Atlanta. She met with the Houston police, along with Richard Delaunay and Carey Anderson. The newspapers originally carried the story as just another murder, an all-too-common occurrence in Houston. However, the gay community was alerted by local activists. Large-scale public protests followed, some in front of the home of the mayor, with Nancy Rodriguez and Queer Nation participating. Due to the resulting media attention, a girl who dated one of the assailants, reacting to a story on Crime-Stoppers, called the police and turned the boys in. Within days, all were arrested.

Although the wheels of justice ground slowly, all were eventually convicted, some with pleas of guilty, others in criminal trial. Jon Buice, who confessed to having wielded the knife that apparently made the fatal wound, received the longest sentence–45 years for murder. Another of the assailants, Paul Chance Dillion, was convicted on one count of attempted murder served concurrently with one count of aggravated attempted murder, and was released March 2000.
Five of the boys received probation or deferred adjudication. Nancy Rodriguez and her family, aided by Andy Kahan, of the Houston Crime Victim's Office, worked with the D.A. on setting the terms–the first time this had been done in Harris County. Sentences included boot camp in summer, 500 hours of community service to the gay and lesbian community in Houston, and attending a Parents of Murdered Children meeting. The court also ordered them to pay for Anderson’s hospital bill and Broussard’s funeral.

The three other primary assailants received 15-year (and one day) prison sentences for their admitted participation in the beatings. At the time of the sentencing, Nancy Rodriguez protested that the sentences for the three were too light. "Nothing is enough," she said. "They’ve been walking around now for 18 months while my son’s been lying in the ground." Brian Bradley of Queer Nation said, "Fifteen years and one day with the possibility of parole in 15 months is not right." Those three with 15-year sentences might serve as little as three years in prison. Jon Buice himself is currently up for parole consideration in 2003, after serving only 12 years of his 45-year sentence.

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