Gay City News on Eddie Garzon

from the September 6th, 2001 candlelight vigil in the wake of Eddie's death

So I've been helping out some reporters to reach out to friends and family of Eddie Garzon for the various articles that have run since the announcement of the arrest of one of the alleged assailants, five years after he was murdered.

In today's edition of Gay City News, Paul Schindler reports on the arrest of John L. McGhee and reveals that Detective Daniel Corey of the 115th Precinct in Queens (of which I have been critical in the past) actually traveled to London a while back to investigate witness accounts and leads leading to McGhee.

He says that McGhee had been "a person of interest for a while" and was known to have left New York for London "within a few months" of the attack. I hope this means they have a solid case.

In the meantime, when I was asked to write a 'perspectives' piece for the issue, I hesitated. It's one thing to write about it in your own blog, it's another to write a 1,000+ essay trying to bring another perspective to Eddie's life, beyond the criminal case and the circumstances of his murder. You can judge by yourself how well I did by going here.

The 5th year anniversary since the attack and his eventual death are coming up and some of us are considering putting together a memorial mass as well as an observance vigil. He is missed.

But, at the same time, I keep wishing that other instances of violence in our communities would also get some sort of closure, including Rashawn Brazell, Rodney Velazquez, perhaps even Jamal James up in Harlem, and others.