Tulsa man attacked; called racial and homophobic slurs

by Robin Dorner
Editor in Chief

A Tulsa man was assaulted Sunday morning at a Tulsa Walgreens wearing a rainbow clad Oklahomans for Equality (OkEq) t-shirt.

“I was in the checkout line and this guy walks by and there was this girl behind me waiting,” said Jose Vega, the man assaulted. “Apparently where I was where he was in line. He says to his (apparent) girlfriend, “If this little bitch thinks he’s going to cut me, he’s fucked up.’

“I kinda thought he was talking about me – and he was!”

The man tapped Vega on the back and said, “Hey, I was there.”

Vega said he responded with, “OK, if this is your spot I don’t mind,” to which the stranger replied, “Well, didn’t you see I walked by you?”

Vega said he had not seen the man because he was there to buy some cold medicine and was simply minding his own business. He simply gave the man his spot back.

From there, there was another lane open and the couple moved to that lane to check out. Vega checked out overhearing the man say, “You know, I’m just going to wait outside.”

When Vega finished checking out, he realized coincidentally, the two had parked side-by-side.

“He started cussing me, ‘You fucking Mexican, you dirty Mexican, go back to Mexico you fucking faggot.’”

Vega said he just looked to the ground to avoid eye contact and just get in his car. But Vega said the man was relentless and continued to call him names and began spitting on him.

“As I was pulling out he kicked my side mirror. I did what I tell other people to do at that point…I started recording and I got out of the car. The man said, ‘Don’t fucking record this, faggot!’”

When Vega was punched at, the phone was bumped in such a way that Vega said it must have stopped recording at that point.

“I continued pointing the phone at the tags and he said, ‘don’t fucking record my tags, faggot.’”

Vega said at this point, the man jumped on the back of his car with his legs dragging to cover the license plate and told the lady to start driving. They went far enough where neither Vega nor the Walgreen’s camera could photograph the tag, then the man jumped in the car.

Vega called the police, told them the entire story and was able to give them half of the tag number. They spoke to the manager, but does not know if they will be looking at the Walgreens video footage.

“I was wearing our (Oklahomans for Equality) rainbow shirt “The Revolution Continues.” We like to say, ‘caution wearing this shirt may bring acts of kindness,’ well this one brought an act of hatred.”

Toby Jenkins, executive director of Oklahomans for Equality weighed in on the assault and wearing the shirt saying, “I believe it identified him [Vega] as LGBT or equality supporting. Wearing rainbow apparel may get you attacked and threatened, but it may also start life-changing conversations. Only for the brave and cautious.”

Vega is the Program Director at Oklahomans for Equality and works with Jenkins at OkEq, the fifth largest equality center in the world.

Vega was only able to get a picture of the man from the back. He also indicated the man was “grabbing the area in his front where a person might carry a gun,” but Vega never actually saw a firearm on the man.
 

“In my mind, the first thing I thought was, ‘he has a gun!’”

Jenkins told the police he would be contacting them in follow-up.

“Out of so many stories that I have heard, and videos I have seen, I know the precautions that you have to take. I feel like I took those steps. My fear was he had a gun and he was going to pull it out and start shooting. I felt like he was used to doing bad things because he knew to jump on the back of the car to hide the tag.”

Vega said he does not know if there will be any resolution to this from the Tulsa Police Department.

“You know, there are no laws for hate crimes for being a gay individual, but there is for being Mexican. So if they wouldn’t have called me Mexican, they would have only called me gay, it would be only a simple assault, not a hate crime.

“These are scary story stories that you hear, but it’s not until you actually live it. I know people have had it worse, but even just being in that circumstance is a scare knowing that there is hate just even going to the pharmacy.”

The Gayly – May 15, 2016 @ 12:25 p.m.