'The garda told me, "That's what happens when you go to a gay bar"'

Annasopra

The story below appeared in the sunday independent

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=949995&issue_id=9009

I think its disgraceful!!!



BRIAN URBAND is a voluble New Yorker who came to work in the software business in Dublin two years ago. Last week, he sold his home and moved to Prague in the Czech Republic, summing up his Irish experience in one word: "Horrible".
"I am a very cautious man," he says, but caution couldn't save him in Dublin, where he's been badly beaten up and robbed twice. The motive for the first attack was pure robbery - they wanted his Rolex watch. The second time, he believes, was primarily because he was gay, but they also took his €800 mobile phone as a bonus.
"I loved my home and I loved where I lived, but these experiences have left a bitter taste in my mouth," says Urband.
The first attack, last November, was outside a gay bar on the Dublin quays. He had come back from a wedding in Cavan and went into the pub for a few drinks before going home to Blanchardstown, Co Dublin.
"I am 47 years old," he says. "For most of my life I lived in New York and never had a problem. But this was a horrific experience. They kicked me on the ground and kept kicking me. They broke six ribs, I had blood in my urine and they stole my Rolex watch and other jewellery."
Mr Urband's problems were compounded by what he felt was poor follow-up by the gardai, which he found "most disturbing".
He claims one garda remarked, "That's what happens when you go to a gay bar," when he reported the matter. Although the gardai took a statement, it seemed to get lost in the system for several weeks and it wasn't until February that two gardai called to his house to take a report on the November incident.
"I paid €72,000 in taxes," he says. "I thought I might be entitled to a more efficient service than that." By the time the gardai compiled a report, his insurance company had paid for the Rolex and other items stolen that night. Urband just chalked it down to a bad experience, but it unsettled him and he decided to leave Ireland.
In the process of doing so, he sold his car for €180. As it happens, a couple of weeks later he went into a pub and the guy who'd bought it happened to be there with a couple of mates watching Match of the Day on the TV.
The man who bought the car claimed the windscreen wipers weren't working and he wanted money back. Urband gave him €20 but the guy threw it back at him, saying, "I wouldn't take money from a ****."
To try to make peace he bought a round of drinks, but when he got back to the table his mobile phone was gone. When he asked where it was, he was met with, "Are you accusing us of stealing?"
He decided to leave, but one of the people at the table followed him outside and said his mobile was thrown at the back of the pub. When he was lured around there, three of them were waiting. They beat him up, kicking him on the ground, he says, shouting, "We are going to kill you, ****!"
Covered in blood, he walked home and some neighbours helped him. He was told if he reported the incident his house could be set on fire.
The following day he contacted the Garda Gay Liaison officer at Pearse Street in Dublin, who was "brilliant" and offered him every
assistance.
He feels that because he is gay, the attitude of many people to the beatings he suffered was: "What did you do to provoke it?" According to him he did nothing, and if such violence had been handed out to a heterosexual person it would have been taken more seriously.
"I don't care whether I pay €70,000 in tax or a euro in tax - I believe I should be able to call the gardai and they should answer," he says, shaking the dust of Dublin from his heels forever.

richindub2

Must be some mixup of figures there - someone who pays €72,000 a year in taxes owning a car worth €180?

John2002

Originally posted by richindub2
Must be some mixup of figures there - someone who pays €72,000 a year in taxes owning a car worth €180?

I though that was strange too. Unless he was just looking for an extremely quick sale so he could get the f*ck out of here. I read somewhere that he was very wealthy and his mobile phone was supposedly worth €800 so I'd say he wasn't short a penny.

And it is a disgrace too.

hussey

also, anybody who leaves a phone on a table in a pub is just asking for trouble

Typedef

This is Dublin and that particular New Yorker's experience is one 'most' Dubliners experience to some degree or other until they get a little bit street wise to the 'fact' that Dublin City Centre is Bandit country.

It is telling when natives of New York complain about Dublin being dangerous, unfortunately you can't impress on foreigners just how hostile Dublin really is... they simply have to experience it for themselves.

Typically people who come from the larger cities like Paris, London or New York, think themselves street wise enough to handle the capital of some backwater little country like Ireland, perhaps all that green isle propaganda can really take away the rapant violence, racism and throngs of drug addicts prowling the capital.... but, I don't think so.

Gaffo

I'd consider myself quite a streetwise person but even having said that when I first started going to Loondon on my own I'd often end up in places that when I told family living there where I'd been they seem amazed that I made it out alive.
What I naiively mis took for what was just the way Loondon was was actually the equivalent of Ballymun or the like. Same when I went to NY.

Not trying to take away from what happened to the guy, it's disgraceful, the first mugging you can put down to bad luck maybe, but some people just look like they're easy targets and it happens all the time to them. Being gay obviously made this guy one of them.

madmoe

I think its the pits to be honest. Dublin is gettin/is so bad.

Boston

Originally posted by John2002
And it is a disgrace too.

Agreed, but is it a disgrace because a gay man got beaten up, or is it a disgrace because a person got beaten up. This is a quiet frequent avent in dublin. him Being gay was just an excuse to beat someone, anyone up. you dont really think these people limit their behaviour to homosexual targets, do you?

meglome

it is a disgrace that anyone gets beaten up ever... that said not one of my gay friends has ever been attacked so he's rather unlucky.

Shinji

Gaffo - London is a safer city than Dublin, there's no doubt about that. I'd be happier walking around Brixton or Hackney late at night than I would be walking around much of Dublin. Certainly central London at night is a far cry from the disgraceful state much of central Dublin is in at the same hours.

As to the chap that was beaten up... People get beaten up. They get beaten up for being gay, for supporting the wrong football team, for looking sideways at the wrong person... That's a disgrace in itself, I guess. But what's REALLY disgraceful in this case is obviously the response of the gardai. I wonder if they'd have been so blase about it if he'd been beaten up for wearing the wrong football jersey?

Clintons Cat

I would agree that "Queer Bashers" as they used to be so charmingly refered to over here dont confine their attacks soley to Gay people,in the same way "paki bashers" dont confine their attacks to persons from the indian sub continent.

What these people want is to do is Legitimise their anti social behaviour by applying a false sense of "moral" superiority to their otherwise totally anti social behaviour.

The He/she was asking for it wearing that/being there attitude.

Wether or not Mr URBAND was gay or straight,in the minds of his attackers he "fitted" the profile,middle age man out on his own in the wrong part of town.

They used to call certain types of hate crime,especially attacks on Gays and Streetwalkers "NVI" in unofficial police slang that stood for "No Victim Involved".
Things are changing though as his experience with the Garda Gay Liaison officer at Pearse Street showed,but it takes a long time for these attitudes to filter down to the street level officers.

<<this post Probally needs more work after i've given it a bit more thought.>>

Kell

Originally posted by Typedef
Typically people who come from the larger cities like Paris, London or New York, think themselves street wise enough to handle the capital of some backwater little country like Ireland, perhaps all that green isle propaganda can really take away the rapant violence, racism and throngs of drug addicts prowling the capital.... but, I don't think so.

Personally speaking, I have never been the victim of an attack nor do I know anyone who has been the victim of an attack in Dublin and I am actually beginning to wonder how street wise people really are. I have had three people request my wallet or else in the past and stood my ground in which case they fúcked off without a blow thrown. That aside, I have been a possible target for an attack on a few occasions (blotto drunk and on my own having lost friends somewhere) and yet nothing happened.

Am I extraordinarily lucky to have not been attacked or just not gone to places where there was a remote possibility of an attack happening?

MDR

The city has awful problems with crime and punishment and I don't want to detract from this guys quite apparentily awful expierences.

As for the response of the Garda (and I know I am over on politics ATM, arguing the ins and outs of Garda Brutality with people from RTS), jesus. To be honest I am more worried about the Garda not turning up the Feburary to take the follow up report than I am about the alledged statement (although I amn't sure members of the LGB community would agree with me).

I think most Garda would agree that poper and whole impartial Garda complaints board is needed to investigate this type of thing, and I have spoken to quite a few who readily accepted this, but at the same time I feel as a society we have to meet them halfway.

I have found that apathy in the force comes from two sources. The courts really let the Garda down, I was chatting with a 'garda' (female) last month, she was telling about an incident that had occured a few weeks before, where they chased a joy rider (on a track bike) for about an hour across west Dublin. They finally caught him and he was arrested, charged and convicted, and recieved a €300 fine. She dispared, that there was not deterant for the joyrider not to do it again.

Similarily, I was talking to another Garda (male) several months ago about a Romanian Gypsy begging at the Blanchstown/M50 interchanged (I think he was stationed in Finglas, not Blancharstown). She was arrested 16 times for dangerousily begging amoung the cars while stopped on the exit ramp, the judge knew her by her first name and every time she was let go with a warning. Both these Garda felt they where losing the motivation to bring people in.

Then there is the work conditions/pay issue, Garda get paid quite badily, teachers who can strike to their hearts content did quite well out of the benchmarking process, the Garda who can't strike (save the very occasional blue flu) did very badily out of the process.

Also there quite a few Garda stations are in quite a poor state of disrepair (don't get me wrong the majority of Garda stations out there are brand spaking newily refurbished ala Pearse Street, Store Street etc) but there are still enough, Coolock, Finglas etc which are just sh*te holes, to make it a legatimate source of anger. I also regularily hear complaints of a general shortage of Patrol Cars across North Dublin, I hear complaints about unpaid appearances at court. Garda on night shift, spending their days giving evidence ... lads ... I won't go on ... there is a long list ... its enough to say that people rarely stop to wonder why, in an we are losing the battle with crime.

Garda corruption is a tiny part of this huge problem, but because they are on the front lines they are the first to be blamed.

aliesneo

i dont think its just Dublin getting worse. Its the whole country!!
Street violence is increasing everywhere.Oh yes i nearly forgot to say my opinion of the Gardai.
THERE AN ABSOLUTE JOKE!!!

dendenz

O Connell St. and Grafton St and Cnetral Bank,I avoid them on late nights that when I am out

Gargamel

Having grown up in Ballymun throughout the eighties I moved away from Dublin to the a little satellite town miles away. it turned out to be a misnomer in the sense of work and nightlife and the discrimination against gay people in rural Ireland I've found insidious and rampant. Work brought me back here about six months ago, since then I've been mugged twice and had a bottle smashed across the back of my head. The garda have never followed up on these reported incidents and seem to be permanently baffled as to where they filed the paperwork when I've called. These incidents were not related to any homophobic acts in my case, but the result is still the same. Dublin seems to me to be like a giant Ballymun minus the community spirit, there's some really messed-up people out there though reported I'm sure quite frequently are going unchecked. At least from what I can gather. I mean, I like living in Dublin, but I've found myself making plans to leave, maybe it' sthe contrast between citya and country that's highlighting for me, but there's an atmosphere of fear in the city centre! I have the feeling I won't be able to put up with this crap much longer

STaN

I can see where you are coming from on allot of points. But i think Dublin is allot safer than it is make it out to be. There are area's of the city that you just don't go at night or even during the day.

I have never been mugged or involved in a fight in the city, god help anyone that would try. But i am generally not alone at night, and when I am, I find it easy enough to stay out of peoples way who are obviously drunk or look anyway dodgy. That said i would walk through a street line with flat's and not be bothered.

I have also never seen any gay related incidents, I've seen fights but nothing of the "you f*cking queer, i'm gonna smash your face in" variety. I'm comfortable walking down Dame, O'Connel and Henry street (maybe when its not packed) holding a guy's hand, and have done so without any comments. I was tempted to pull away, but it was allot of fun. I've also openly kissed guys in the middle of Dame street for relatively long periods of time without anything happening, and the same with other area's around Dublin. (Dame street flowing with people at 2 or 3 in the morning of a saturday night)

I've done this with a number of guys and they were a bit weird about it, but found it very liberating from the normal behind the scene's stuff that they might have been used to. It make's you feel like its almost the norm. I can only hope that it does over the next few years.

Trojan

Wow! I know the guy!

I don't want to say too much on this specific subject.

--

Let me digress, to more philosophical matters, like Karma.

I believe in karma. I believe that "what goes around, comes around".

I believe that if I was a complete and utter asshole, and then I happened to get beaten up, well that would be karma. I wouldn't be happy that I'd been beaten up, and I wouldn't want other people to be happy about it either. However, I would understand that they're entitled to say "it's just karma"...

mayhem#

My god! Irish people being narrow-minded, ignorant and xenofobic?
Really?

E.

solice

ireland the land of saints and vomit. well it is official that o connell st is the most dangerous street in dublin. its not just gays being attacked, its anyone that at that exact moment deserves to be beaten up for whatever reason.

in cork we have the same problem. street violence became an epidemic here five years ago that every night someone was being beaten up and put into hospital. two kids were in a coma for months. even bouncers were getting in on the act.

to deal with it, it was decided to close all the pubs and clubs an hour earlier than the rest of the country. does it work, yes. violence has come down but its still not safe.

gay bashing is not the main problem, the main problem is irish pig ignorance, intolerance and bigotted nature. its a society thing. change our drinking habits and change our beating habits.

The Brigadier

I was in Cape Town recently. I would feel safer walking around there than around Dublin late at night.

The Dublin 'rough type' is probably the most vicious I have seen anywhere

MDR

Do you ever get the feeling that Ireland is a country devoid of empathy ?

Our people don't feel for each other, they will more readily jump to defend the people of Iraq than their own sons and daughters. I really feel half of the problem isn't the Garda or the courts or the drink, its the people who walk by and don't get involved, I refuse to walk by anymore.

m0o|Dino

Complete disgrace reading this, cork is just as bad if not worse. I hear about ppl getting murdered, stabbed beaten up and never took notice of it, like if i heard something on the radio id think to myself "oh god poor chap" and forget about it 2mins later.

My cousin and best friend was shot dead infront of his girlfirend 7 months ago in this ****hole of a place, called Cork. Believe me when something like this happens u look at everything differently, ppl have no respect for life anymore and its only gonna get worse unless these SCUM are put away