On January 27 several prominent Los Angeles lesbian and gay organizations demanded immediate action against Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers who committed a hate crime against a young gay man that was documented in a New York Times Magazine (NYT) cover story on Jan. 22. The NYT story quotes an LAPD officer in the Rampart Division saying, "Stand still you [expletive] faggot. You're a faggot aren't you? You look like a faggot... Hey, you got AIDS?" to Julien, a 19-year-old robbery victim. The young man, alone on the street, had called police for help. Following this abuse, the officers violated LAPD policy by abandoning him when he said he wanted to kill himself.
"We will not tolerate hate crimes being perpetrated by our own police force," said Lorri L. Jean, executive director of the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Community Services Center. "The mission of the LAPD is to serve and protect, not seek and destroy." Specifically, demands have been made that all officers involved in the incident be removed from street duty, that results of the investigation be made public, that officers found to have behaved inappropriately suffer the maximum punishment, that corrective measures be taken to prevent future hate crimes by officers, that the LAPD issue a public condemnation of the officers' behavior and a public apology to the young man, and that Chief Willie Williams appoint an openly lesbian or gay police officer to serve as a liaison to the gay/lesbian community, as is routinely done with respect to other communities, and create a special hate crimes unit.