David Ritcheson, 18, who survived a brutal beating with a pipe last year apparently jumped to his death from a Cozumel-bound cruise ship on Sunday.
He was observed by several individuals jumping over the railing of the upper deck of Carnival Cruise Lines' Ecstasy around 7:35 a.m. Sunday. The ship's crew pulled the body from the water and he was pronounced dead at 9:10 a.m.
WAS IT SUICIDE?
Ritcheson's death comes less than three months after he testified before Congress about how two teens nearly killed him on April 23, 2006 by repeatedly kicking a patio umbrella stand into his rectum while shouting "white power!"
In an April interview, Ritcheson said he was still struggling with being identified as the victim of the pipe attack. Two skinheads, David Tuck, 19, was sentenced to life in prison for his part in the attack. Keith Turner, 18, received a 90-year sentence.
Neighbors stated that Tuck had swastikas painted on the fence at his home. On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, he flew a swastika flag.
Trial testimony revealed Ritcheson and friend Gus Sons met up with Tuck and Turner at a crawfish festival the night of the attack. From there, they went to Sons' house, where they drank vodka, smoked marijuana and used cocaine and Xanax, an anti-anxiety drug.
Sons testified that Tuck and Turner attacked Ritcheson because they believed he stole some drugs and tried to kiss Sons' 12-year-old sister.
Tuck and Turner dragged Ritcheson, who was Hispanic, into the backyard, where they taunted him with racial slurs, punched and kicked him in the head with steel-toed boots, burned him 17 times with cigarettes, and tried to carve a swastika into his chest. Tuck inserted a plastic PVC pipe with a point at one end into his rectum and shoved it in as far as he could by kicking the pipe as hard as he could.
In order to destroy DNA evidence, they poured bleach on his face and body and left him for dead. Witnesses did nothing to help and no one called for an ambulance until well after daybreak…which was approximately 10 hours. He suffered massive internal injuries and doctors told investigators they suspected some kind of toxicity in his internal organs that may have been caused by the introduction of some foreign substance. It was believed bleach may have been poured through the pipe into his rectum.
Ritcheson spent three months and eight days in the hospital and endured more than 30 surgeries. He was coping with the past, he said last spring, "by not thinking about it." He declined psychiatric help.
RITCHESON’S CRY FOR HELP
On April 17, 2007, Ritcheson called on Congress to strengthen U.S. hate crime laws.
"I appear before you as a survivor…I am here before you today asking that our government take the lead in deterring individuals like those who attacked me from committing unthinkable and violent crimes against others because of where they are from, the color of their skin, the God they worship, the person they love, or the way they look, talk or act." (source)
From Harper's Weekly, for April 24, 2007:
Ritcheson said he was frustrated by the fact that the state of Texas and the federal government were unable to use existing hate crime laws to prosecute his attackers. Authorities said they could not investigate as hate crimes assaults that take place on private property.
Representative Louie Gohmert (R., Tex.) argued against a hate crime bill from the floor of the House. "If you are going to hurt someone, if you are going to shoot them, brutalize them, please make it a random, senseless act of violence like Virginia. Don't hate them while you hurt them." (That has to be the most dumbest sentence I ever heard. I think he's been hanging around Bush too much...)
Gohmert told Ritcheson that he sympathizes with him and agrees "what you went through was intolerable." But then in the same sentence he told Ritcheson that even if the hate crime law were expanded, it "really wouldn't have affected your case.” Is it apparent that Gohmert sympathizes with Ritcheson's assailants'?
Gohmert also stated that, “...the law could lead to a transsexual who is a victim of a crime being treated differently than a heterosexual. He also said it would send a message to victims like those killed and wounded in Monday's shootings at Virginia Tech that they are not as important as transvestites or gender crime victims.”
He isn't concerned about prosecuting hate crimes, he is concerned about protecting hate speech.
(source)
2 comments:
wow. that was heavy. it hurts so much to hear this.
there was another such story long long ago, i heard my parents recount it. Only this time it was a young Haitian officer in the marine.
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