By JENNIFER PELTZ and TOM HAYS, Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) Thousands of people marched through the streets of Manhattan Monday to protest the killing of a gay man allegedly taunted with homophobic slurs _ the most recent in a spate of bias attacks stirring up anxiety, disbelief and outrage in a famously gay-friendly neighborhood.
“We’re here! We’re queer!” and “Homophobia’s got to go!” were among chants as a crowd marked the death of 32-year-old Mark Carson in Greenwich Village in lower Manhattan _ not far from the site of 1969 riots that helped give rise to the gay rights movement.
Christine Quinn, the city’s first openly gay City Council speaker and a mayoral candidate, marched along with Edie Windsor, whose pivotal case to win the same rights for gay couples as heterosexual couples is before the Supreme Court.
Carson was killed Saturday as he walked with a companion through Greenwich Village. Police say a man charged with murder as a hate crime shot Carson in the head in the middle of one of the city’s most progressive neighborhoods.
In the wake of the deadly shooting, officials said Monday that police would increase their presence there and in nearby neighborhoods through the end of June, Gay Pride Month.
A group that combats anti-gay violence planned to fan out to various areas on Friday nights through June to talk to people about safety. And public schools are being asked to hold assemblies or other discussions of hate crimes and bullying before summer break.
City officials, gay-rights advocates and others joined the march Monday evening to denounce a rise in hate crime reports in a city that generally sees itself as a capital of diversity and tolerance.
One of Carson’s aunts, Flourine Bompars, was among the marchers.
“The family would like to have justice be served, so that Mark’s death is not in vain,” she said at a rally at the march’s end. She described her nephew as “a loving and caring person.”
Fabio Cotza, a gay member of an interfaith Bronx church, said the killing “really makes me scared … especially since it happened in this area.”
He said he looked around cautiously when he got off the subway train to march.
“You feel like you’re making headway and then it seems like there’s a backlash,” he said.
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