Pictured Rashawn Brazell
The National Black Justice Coalition ( NBJC ) , a Black gay civil-rights organization, issued a release condemning the death of Rashawn Brazell, a 19-year-old Brooklyn ( N.Y. ) resident whose body was hacked apart and found in several pieces across the borough. According to the statement, investigators have not classified the murder as a hate crime and are still looking for a suspect.
On Feb. 17, a transit authority employee found two legs and an arm stuffed in a bloody plastic bag that was jammed against a tunnel wall of a subway track. Brazell was an aspiring Web designer who lived with his parents; on the fateful day, he supposedly left his home for a meeting with a tax preparer. However, according to New York Newsday, friends said that Brazell was supposed to meet a man for a rendezvous.
NBJC also notes that recently, Richard McCullough, who was charged with the 2003 killing of 15-year-old lesbian Sakia Gunn, was permitted to plead down from a murder charge to aggravated manslaughter.
NBJC strategic director H. Alexander Robinson said that ' [ t ] he perpetrators of violent anti-gay hate crimes seek to divide us from the American family. These terrorists want to send a message to society that devalues our lives. [ However, ] we must reject their message of hate and send a clear message our own.'