People Unite Against Murder: Matthew Shepard

It was a horrific crime murder is one thing but torture is another. Torture requires a sexually twisted mind. Matthew Shepard died a needless death at the hands of sadists like so many hippies in the sixties and seventies, and the Wobbles, and of course the Indians and the Blacks before them, murdered, buried in the woods, hanged from trees, railroad bridges, lampposts and fences. The West is filled with graves.

The West and Wyoming and Montana are continuations of Texas; Texas has race problems. Owned by English lords and settled by Civil War veterans and victims, it is a land where the regulator still works side by side with the law.

Matthew was gay and trusting, not a real good idea to trust strangers, but he trusted the young men who lured him in to the fall night to reive him under a full moon. The reivers were criminals looking for a wallet to steal they said...

This death hit a chord with me and I did not hesitate when I heard there would be a vigil on Monday night. Over the years too many have been killed for small reason, I want to never forget those whose lives are taken.

Monday night we drove to Colorado Springs, a family trip.

Acacia Park is the home of some of the sleaziest people I have seen this side of Green River. The park was filled with stoned youth. Slowly the real people came and quickly the difference was clear between the people selling their bodies and the people out there to protest a murder. Some how people with lives and hopes make the drug dealer and street sleeze vanish or feel very uncomfortable.

The first people there were the techies who set the stage with just the right sound system for the event.

A large near middle aged man in a dress was helping the crew set up, I started making notes. I looked up and were about a hundred people, there, lighting candles and talking quietly. There were three policemen in the dark corner of the park where the street people were hanging.

All ages were present from the three month old infant to woman in her late eighties. There were gays and straights people who are horrified to see crimes of this sort. Nearly five hundred people gathered at the start of the service.

First Strike Theater hit the stage first. "Healing Rivers..."They sing and perform very well and wonder why they are never covered by local radio or Television. A local preacher then led the people in trying to understand what had happened, a second preacher then attempted to make sense out of the senseless. "Send down your waters." Can we be free? I know so, but we deny it, and we have trained our children to murder, rape and kill. No parents, easy, one has killers...Back there in the dark, the killers wait . The children of the night . When the candle light goes out they are there.. I walk back into the night and they are there. Forced back by the light but still there. All the police, angry merchants, disgusted teachers, editorial writers cannot dispel them and they might be swelling their dying numbers. What we are doing is failing in our attempts to educate.

"Let the Cry of Justice that lies within us." The press is there along with the one eyed god of televison cutting the night with their cameras. My count, just under five hundred fifty people. The stage is filling with people who look political sitting there. I see Cohia Red Elk, a well know racist Indian. She is epitome of what is wrong with being politically correct. One day a friend of Will Perkins the next a friend of the gay community. When she was working desecrating Indian graves for Lyda Hill, a local billionairess, she was doing other duties for the police force. She was attempting to build an army out at a drunk farm on the prairie. There were weapons and drunkenness. Her husband Lorin wasn't present on the stage that night; he might have been off getting physical with elderly reporters.

She is called to speak and she talks of healing. In her work as a police informer she screwed up the meaning of Indianness and divided a poor, splintered community; now she works for the City of Colorado Springs.

Time to leave no need to see a horrid event and a public healing turned into an apology for police informers and other base criminals. The thought was good, the intent was good, but the presence of violent criminals, in Indian clothing coming as peacemakers, boggles the imagination...I feel that that presence of people who compete with Betty Beedy for the title of hate queen does not enhance an event meant to heal the community.

"We are going to keep on seeking justice." When will we learn to teach our children? Matthew Shepard learned a hard lesson, conform or die.

Later on the radio I heard the other pimps come out to push whatever their agenda, death brings out the shameless ghouls. The press has become a theater of cruelty and this crime fits that stage. Matthew Shepard became another victim and we lose.

©Cordley G. Coit