Couple spices things up
Tour of old queer bars
12
Bobby Conte
12
ARTS
08
ARTS
05
Mark Morris Dance Group
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Vol. 53 • No. 06 • February 9-15, 2023
Family of gay son demands formal inquest into his death by John Ferrannini Via GoFundMe
Barry Miles, left, before he said he was attacked by two men, and right, after he was hospitalized.
Gay man reportedly beaten, hospitalized after leaving SOMA bar
by John Ferrannini
A
gay man said that he was beaten near a South of Market LGBTQ bar over the weekend, leading to his hospitalization, and a GoFundMe has been set up to help pay for his living expenses. Barry Miles posted a picture of himself post-attack to his Instagram page Monday, February 6. Miles wrote, “Last night I got jumped when I left powerhouse by two guys. My wallet was taken? I also had a heart attack. They put in two stents. From high cholesterol. my face hit the sidewalk. also a front tooth was knocked out, and a small fracture in my neck. I’m pretty banged up.” Allison Maxie, a spokesperson for the San Francisco Police Department, corroborated Miles’ account in a statement to the Bay Area Reporter on Tuesday. “On February 5, 2023 at approximately 12:02 a.m., San Francisco Police Officers from Southern Station responded to the unit block of Langton Street regarding a call for a well-being check,” Maxie wrote. “Officers arrived on scene and located an adult male being treated by medics. During the initial interaction with officers, the victim was unable to provide details regarding what led up to his injuries.” Then, “officers responded to a business on the 1300 block of Folsom Street where the male stated he had come from and during their initial investigation, officers were unable to determine that a crime had occurred at that location,” Maxie added. “At this time, we do not have evidence that this incident was hate-motivated,” Maxie stated. Scott Richard Peterson, the general manager of Powerhouse, stated to the B.A.R. that an officer showed up after midnight. “A policeman came by after midnight,” Peterson stated. “The incident didn’t happen at Powerhouse, on the alley or on Folsom [Street] that we could see ... Officer didn’t give me any details. See page 10 >>
T
he family of a gay 20-year-old Korean/Filipino man found dead in a San Francisco high rise nearly three years ago are demanding several local and state law enforcement officials call for a formal inquest into his death. Jaxon Sales died March 2, 2020 in the Rincon Hill apartment of a 41-year-old man, as the Bay Area Reporter previously reported. But his death was deemed accidental by officials and wasn’t investigated at the time by police as possibly a homicide. The Sales family wants the death of Jaxon Sales be looked into as potentially a homicide. They are calling on California Attorney General Rob Bonta, San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu, and San Francisco Police Chief William Scott to “compel the San Francisco Medical Examiner to fully investigate the circumstances of their son’s death.” A representative for the Sales family provided the B.A.R. with an advance copy of their statement ahead of its release Tuesday. San Francisco Police Chief William Scott told the B.A.R. January 26 that the “investigation is closed.”
Courtesy Sales family
The family of Jaxon Sales is demanding city and state officials compel San Francisco’s chief medical examiner to open an inquest into the young man’s 2020 death.
“There has not been any criminal filing from the investigation,” the chief added. However, when asked to confirm Scott’s comments, Officer Robert Rueca, an SFPD public information officer, stated February 6, “The chief may have been referring to a different case, but this investigation is still open.”
Last January – before the Sales family spoke extensively to the press about their desire to see the investigation opened – the police department had told the B.A.R. that it did not intend to open an investigation on account of the medical examiner’s office not suspecting foul play. “This death investigation is led by the [office of the chief medical examiner] and they determine the cause of death (i.e. overdose, etc.) for death investigations. We do not conduct a criminal investigation if there is no evidence of foul play, which we investigate at every scene of a death,” Rueca stated in January 2022. “If the OCME suspects foul play at any point in their investigation, our investigators would conduct a homicide investigation. “For this death investigation officers did not find evidence of foul play during the initial investigation and the OCME did not find evidence of foul play,” Rueca added. “If there was an overdose in the same location that did not result in a death or involved a crime, medics may have responded to this. We do not investigate or respond to medical calls.” See page 9 >>
National LGBTQ Task Force’s Creating Change heads to SF for 1st time
by Heather Cassell
T
housands of LGBTQ activists from around the United States will descend upon San Francisco for the National LGBTQ Task Force’s 35th annual Creating Change conference. It will be the first time for San Francisco to host the task force’s signature grassroots fiveday conference in the city, which historically has been a hotbed of LGBTQ and HIV/AIDS activism as well as other progressive movements. The event takes place February 17-21. Oakland hosted Creating Change in 2005, as the Bay Area Reporter noted at the time, and in 1999. Back then, same-sex marriage (legalized nationwide in 2015), LGBTQ people in the military and the homophobic “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy (repealed in 2010); racial justice; Social Security; and transgender rights were priorities of the task force and at the forefront of the LGBTQ movement. Today, many of those issues remain on the organization’s agenda. The upcoming conference theme is “The State of the Movement: Our Past. Our Present. Our Future.” and will kick off the task force’s 50th anniversary. The task force was founded in 1973 as the National Gay Task Force, and later renamed the National Gay and Lesbian
Courtesy National LGBTQ Task Force
Kierra Johnson, right, now the executive director of the National LGBTQ Task Force, joined then-executive director Rea Carey on stage at a Creating Change conference.
Task Force, to advance the “full freedom, justice, and equality for LGBTQ people,” which remains its goal five decades later. The organization is viewed as more progressive than the Human Rights Campaign, the other national LGBTQ rights organization. This month’s gathering will be the first time more than 2,500 activists and movement
thought leaders will convene in person since the COVID pandemic began in 2020. Creating Change was last held in person in Dallas in January 2020, shortly before pandemic lockdowns were in place in much of the country that March. Keynote speakers for Creating Change are See page 9 >>
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