Last week, we told you how LGBT Dallas residents are taking matters into their own hands in the wake of a recent string of violent anti-gay attacks in the city’s Oak Lawn neighborhood.
About 20 new recruits have signed up for the Dallas Police Department’s Volunteers in Patrol program since more than a dozen anti-gay attacks were reported last fall. However, police still haven’t made any arrests in connection with those incidents, and the volunteers’ presence apparently has done little to quell the wave of violence against LGBT people in the city’s gay entertainment district.
John Anderson, the volunteer featured in our report, says there have been at least five additional attacks against LGBT people in the last three weeks in Oak Lawn. But none of the victims have reported the crimes to police. Here are descriptions of the five attacks, according to Anderson:
• A trans woman required stitches after being attacked while walking down the street behind the Brick, a gay bar.
• A gay couple was attacked behind the Round-Up Saloon, the city’s iconic country and western gay bar.
• A gay man fought off his attackers after being jumped while walking from Station 4, the city’s largest LGBT nightclub, to his apartment.
• A person attending the Texas Bear Roundup, a large gay event, was attacked on the Cedar Springs strip in the heart of Oak Lawn, with his wallet stolen.
• A man ran from three men wielding a baseball bat between the Round-Up Saloon and the nearby Walgreens drug store.
“Unreported attacks are an epidemic issue in Oak Lawn,” Anderson wrote. “If you are attacked, please call 911 immediately. It does not matter if you are intoxicated or undocumented. The police only care about catching the attackers. We cannot become complacent about the crime wave in Oak Lawn. The attackers were never caught and there are still attacks EVERY SINGLE WEEKEND.”
