Teenage lesbian killed in New Jersey
Newark police call stabbing a bias crime, issue warrant

By KEVIN SPENCE

NEWARK, N.J. — A 15-year-old girl was fatally stabbed at a bus stop here after returning from a Greenwich Village party with her friends early in the morning on Sunday, May 11. Newark police issued a warrant and are treating the killing as a bias crime after the assailant was allegedly told the victim was a lesbian.

Police said two men in a white station wagon were passing by the five friends, a few blocks from Newark’s Pennsylvania Station at 3:30 a.m., and taunted the group with sexual suggestions. An argument followed after the teenagers rejected their advances, when police said, one of the men then thrust a knife into Sakia Gunn’s chest. After the incident, the men fled.

“One of the girls expressed her sexuality,” Lt. Derrick Glenn of the Newark Police Department told the Blade. The New York Times has reported that one of the girls told the men they were not interested in them because they were gay. Glenn said the perpetrators at first did not know the girls were gay.

A friend of Gunn’s signaled a passing motorist, who drove the victim to University Hospital in Newark, police said. She died a short time later.

A warrant has been issued in the attack for 29-year-old Richard McCullough. When apprehended, he will face charges of homicide, weapons possession and bias intimidation. On Monday, May 12, the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office determined that the sophomore at West Side High School was, in fact, the victim of a bias crime.

But the victim’s uncle, Maurice Gunn, insisted that the stabbing was not a bias crime. “The murder didn’t have nothing to do with her being bisexual,” Gunn told the Blade.

LaTona Gunn, the victim’s mother, told a reporter from the Newark Star-Ledger that Sakia Gunn was a lesbian. All five girls (aged 15 to 17) dressed like boys, she said.“I won’t know what kind of crime this is until I talk to the guy who did it and he tells me,” LaTona Gunn said this week. “All I know is that my child is gone now.”

Locals react to crime

Sakia Gunn was a member of the West Side High girls’ basketball team until low grades forced her to the sidelines last year. She had hopes of someday playing for the Women’s National Basketball Association.

By several accounts she was popular with other students. Gunn, whose nickname was “T,” had a talent for braiding hair and often created hairstyles for her friends. “The teacher and the coach are having a hard time dealing with this,” said Michelle Baldwin, a spokesperson for the Newark Board of Education.

Calls to West Side High School were not returned by press time. Maurice Gunn told the Associated Press that several students were wearing T-shirts with Gunn’s likeness on them.

Glenn, who is a 15-year veteran of the police department, said that Newark has not recorded a high incidence of bias crimes. He said he found Gunn’s murder particularly upsetting for personal reasons.

“I tend to have more of a personal issue with this because some of my close friends and family members are gay,” he said.

Clarence Patton, a spokesperson for the New York City Gay & Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, said he saw the stabbing as unique because in most gay-related bias crimes, the perpetrator believes the victim is gay or transgendered. Here, the killer did not know Gunn’s sexual orientation when he first approached her.

Often, the perpetrator of anti-bias crimes will claim, “I got so upset I had to kill them,” Patton said. “This is the flip-side of that. A woman is dismissive to the violence of men, and they pay for it with their lives. It’s still unclear how old these murderers are, but these were young girls.”

“There’s no way around it. This young woman had her whole life ahead of her.” Gunn’s murder was especially senseless, he said, “because of her dismissive attitude toward these men.”

"Most cases of crimes against lesbians involve sexual assault, not murder," Patton added.

The police are continuing to look for more information about Gunn’s murder. “Until the investigation is complete and you have statements from all parties, you don’t have any public records,” said Glenn about the killer’s motive. “We are following up leads in search of him.”

“It’s sad. Their lifestyle didn’t interfere with anyone’s,” Glenn said. “It’s like racism. It hasn’t progressed, even in this case. It’s an aspect we’re investigating.”