UPDATE TUESDAY: Just a Thought: Sticks and Stones, Kobe and Bret, Sticks and Stones



Sheriff Bruce Bryant

 Last month I posted the story of Joshua Esskew [HERE] who was called an anti-gay slur, hit in the head with a beer bottle, and then attacked by a group of up to eight people. Hate crime, no? No, not in South Carolina where our politicians don't believe in that sort of thing.

But there is some good news now. York County authorities have arrested and charged five men with assaulting Joshua Esskew.

And while these men, er, boys,, er, morons, could not be charged with a Hate Crime in South Carolina--though the FBI is investigating it as such--Sheriff Bruce Bryant, of Rock Hill, South Carolina, says the five have been charged with assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature. Those charges carry a prison term of up to 20 years.

All five suspects are from York, South Carolina, and they are: 

Cortezio Laquise Douglas, 21



Lortarius Anthony Duncan, 22



LaJames Mitchell, 22

Darenco Markie Wilmore, 20

Bobby Wilson, 20

The melee started after an altercation between Joshua Esskew and Bobby Wilson, standing in front of the convenience store. Wilson threw a beer bottle at Esskew's head, and when Esskew confronted him, the fight began; soon, the others joined in the beating of Joshua Esskew.

Sheriff Bruce Bryant says the store surveillance video helped in the arrests of the five men, as did those people who stepped up to identify the attackers; Bryant praised their "willingness...to get involved and not let this violent crime go unpunished." 

i praise Sheriff Bruce Bryant and the police from York County for not treating this as just another case of kids being kids, and for realizing the hateful nature of this attack.

Via The Charlotte Observer