Oklahoma man files civil rights suit after home is burned following homophobic attacks

Randy Gamel-Medler, an Oklahoma gay man, filed a federal equal protection lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma against nine defendants from Blaine County, Oklahoma, including Hitchcock Mayor Rick Edsall, Blaine County Sheriff Tony Almaguer, and Undersheriff David Robertson.

The lawsuit also includes state law claims for assault, battery, destruction of real and personal property, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The complaint details months of police and government inaction in response to racist and homophobic threats and harassment.

"When our family moved to the town of Hitchcock in rural Oklahoma we thought we were buying our last house, we wanted to know our neighbors by their first names and grow old together, but we were soon met with hatred, suspicion, and discrimination,” said plaintiff Randy Gamel-Medler. “We were terrorized, murder threats were made against our seven year-old African-American son. Town officials conspired to run us out of office, all while local law enforcement ignored our pleas for help. We are now left with the last 27 years of our life literally erased. What do we do now?"

Gamel-Medler, a white gay man with a seven year-old African-American son, was first threatened in September 2016 at a town council meeting only one month after moving to Hitchcock, Oklahoma.

Read more: http://www.normantranscript.com/oklahoma-man-files-civil-rights-suit-after-home-is-burned/article_abc2719e-7b8b-11e7-b882-378eb60cc759.html

Cross-posted in the LGBT Group.