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California couple: We’re victims of homophobic attack at Disneyland-area hotel

California couple: We’re victims of homophobic attack at Disneyland-area hotel
August Skyheart and Will McAdam Photo: Will McAdam
A gay couple living at an extended stay hotel near Disneyland are outraged at hotel managers and the local police department following an incident Sunday that they maintain was a disturbing episode of antigay violence, homophobic treatment by officers and indifferent response by the staff at Candlewood Suites in Anaheim, California.

Will McAdam — who also goes by the name “Elijah” — spoke to LGBTQ Nation exclusively about his frightening encounter with another guest, whom he described as a blonde, 6’7″ tall, large white man in his mid-20s. McAdam said the man assaulted him, held him against his will, spat on him and taunted and threatened him with vulgar and homophobic slurs. He said his partner, August Skyheart, is a cancer patient and was also spat upon by this man. Skyheart declined to be interviewed but was present during McAdam’s call to us.

The official report from Anaheim police is starkly different from the couple’s account, and leaves many unanswered questions, including: why did police officers mute and switch off their body cameras during their investigation? What really happened during those moments?

August Skyheart and Will McAdam Will McAdam

How This All Started

It was midday and the unidentified guest had just checked-in to the hotel, located very close to the “Happiest Place on Earth.” He was staying with a middle-aged man and woman and their two daughters, one of whom McAdam believes was the tall man’s girlfriend. “They appeared to be Hispanic,” McAdam said.

McAdam, who is president of PrivacyDuck, an online security company, said he was on a call in their room, when he heard a commotion in the hallway of the hotel.

“I opened the door and it was a family of five individuals. A woman looked at me and said, ‘What’s your fucking problem?’ And I said, ‘Sorry, I’m on the phone making business calls. Is everything okay? Quiet the fuck down, you’re in public.'”

McAdam went back into his room and the door slammed shut behind him. That — and what he said in the hall — apparently did not sit well with the tall man.

“I went back toward the phone to call the front office [of the hotel], to make it known what just happened. Right then, I heard three, successive, hard kicks against my door. I hear someone yell, ‘Fucker, open up!'”

The Confrontation

With Skyheart just steps away, he immediately opened the door, saying to the man, “What the fuck?” Anaheim police later told McAdam this was his second mistake, the first being going into the hall when he heard the commotion from inside his room. He doesn’t agree.

“Honestly, no,” he said, “because I’m a big believer in defending my property, my partner and my home.” The couple have been living in that room since October and, surprisingly, have not yet moved out, as they are working on a longterm online security project for a major corporation in Orange County.

“He was trying to break in,” McAdam said. “He then spit across my shoulder into my partner’s face. Just three weeks ago he completed chemo and radiation for stage 3 cancer. And so we’re pretty big fans of not having people spit in my partner’s face.”

It’s at this point the confrontation escalated into physical violence — which McAdam admits, he started. In response to the spitting, McAdam said he lunged at the man with his entire body and they wound up back in the hotel hallway. He’s lanky and 6’2″ tall — a good five inches shorter and much smaller in size than the other guest, who McAdam described as close to 375 pounds.

“‘What are going to do, you little faggot queer?'” McAdam quoted the man as saying to him, as the stranger clenched his shirt in his fist, pinned him to the wall and held him against his will, so close he could smell McAdam’s breath. “‘This faggot’s been drinking,'” he said to members of the family, standing nearby.

McAdam admitted he drank two glasses of wine over the course of two hours inside his room prior to the confrontation, but said he was not drunk or even buzzed.

The two young women in the man’s party then started yelling slurs at McAdam, including “fag” and “queer,” he said, as he remained pinned and said he contemplated whether he should kick out his attacker’s knee, or gouge his eyes, to break free. That’s when Skyheart, also 6’2″ tall, confronted the man and told him to let his partner go.

It’s at this point that the blonde man, according to McAdam, said “‘Let’s just walk away. Let’s get him kicked out.'”

After letting him go, he said the man spat at him a second time and started to walk away. But McAdam said he then turned around and threatened the couple: “I know where you live. I’ll come back for you later tonight. You guys are fucking dead.”

McAdam wasn’t about to let that go unanswered, asking his assailant, “Really, fat ass?”

Contradicting Stories

It’s at this point, according to McAdam’s account, that Jose, a maintenance man who works at the hotel came upon the scene and approached McAdam and Skyheart, asking if they were alright. McAdam said he hadn’t seen anything. However, Anaheim police say Jose told them a completely different story.

“That employee had already left, but was spoken to by telephone,” according to a police report by an unnamed lieutenant, who investigated the incident following an inquiry by LGBTQ Nation. “The employee indicated he did witness the incident, actually stepped in between Mr. McAdam and the other party and encouraged both parties to go back to their rooms. The employee denied there was a physical assault and indicated Mr. McAdam was the instigator using a great deal of profanity.”

When alerted to this report, McAdam told us he stands by his account and accused Anaheim police of using Jose as “a scapegoat for not arresting the original assailant.”

In the days following the incident, McAdam has been sharing his story, and his anger at Anaheim police, with his Twitter followers.

Haggling With The Hotel

McAdam said in the moments immediately following his fight with the man in the hallway, the couple retreated to their room and he called the hotel’s front desk to complain about this guest. He said he told Scotty, the manager on duty, he and his partner had been assaulted, and damage was done to his door when the man kicked it. He said Scotty at first told him he couldn’t do anything unless McAdam provided him with the room number of the other guest. Enraged, McAdam went down to the front desk to speak with Scotty face to face, and demanded he call police. But he said Scotty told him he couldn’t, and that only his supervisor, Gene, who was not at work, could do that. He later said he had trouble reaching Gene, according to McAdam.

Not far away, the middle-aged couple who had accompanied the tall, blonde man sat in the lobby, watching all this unfold.

Frustrated, McAdam called police himself and then he and his partner walked outside so he could, in his words, “stress smoke,” to relieve the tension. Police responded swiftly, with officers in four squad cars within 5 minutes of his call; a fifth arrived a few minutes later.

“My Greatest Mistake”

But the first people the officers spoke to were the couple who had been sitting in the lobby, who gave their account of the incident before McAdam could approach them. “That is probably my greatest mistake,” McAdam said, “standing back and letting them have the first round.”

When McAdam was summoned by a phone call to meet with the officers in the lobby, he and Skyheart tried to do so — and he said was immediately told by Officer Dorantes, “‘Get back to the curb!'” McAdam tried to explain what he was told, and said Dorantes responded, “‘I understand what you were told, get back to the curb!'”

Ten minutes later, he said Officer Avila came over the the couple and his first question to them was: “Okay, what did you do to cause this confrontation?”

Everything went downhill from here, McAdam said. Avila interrupted McAdam’s account of the incident, after hearing he had opened the door to find out about the loud shouting in the hallway, and said, “‘Do you see what you did wrong there?'”

McAdam claimed Avila told him, by opening his door, he was in the wrong: “‘You’re not the victim in this situation. You’re more like the aggressor. You opened the door twice. There’s no need for that.'” When McAdam explained why he did what he did, Avila told him, “You should have sat down and called the police and waited.”

“You’re Flamboyant”

McAdam told Avila he was “gravely mistaken,” and felt his life was endangered, but he said the officer was unswayed, and responded with a homophobic stereotype:

“‘You opened the door twice and you guys were very flamboyant and you wonder why this happens.'”

“Excuse me?” McAdam said he replied. “‘Yes, you’re flamboyant,'” he claims Avila told him.

It gets worse.

He said Avila turned his back and walked away, then joined Dorantes at one of the squad cars for a private conversation, along with another cop, Officer Lorenzo Uribe, who had interviewed Skyheart. “I saw one of the officers make a limp-hand gesture,” McAdam said, immediately sensing that the cops were mocking them.

“But I did nothing,” he said, “because I didn’t want to get shot.”

McAdam said at that point they decided to walk away, and claimed Avila told the couple they had wasted the officers’ time. He replied, “Whatever. Fuck off.”

The So-Called Arrest

But Officer Uribe asked them to wait, to sign papers so they could arrest the man, which McAdam and Skyheart did. What they didn’t understand, a spokesperson for the Anaheim police told LGBTQ Nation, is that this was a “citizens arrest” since officers didn’t see the events transpire.

“‘Now,'” Urbibe told the couple, according to McAdam, “you boys understand this isn’t some little game? If you’re lying to us and making this up, stop now. This is real.”

“Yeah,” McAdam replied, “so is being assaulted and spit on. Three hate crimes occurred upstairs. This is why we called you!”

But instead of hauling away the man in handcuffs, officers shocked the couple by handing him a citation for a misdemeanor. “So you’re going to let this individual stay here?” McAdam asked, reminding Uribe the man had threatened to come after them later that night. “How much physical harm do I have to endure,” McAdam asked the officer, “before you’ll do something?”

When he pressed further, McAdam said Uribe put his hand on his holstered automatic weapon and ordered him, “Back to the curb!”

The Tweetstorm

He said Avila three times refused to give him his business card and wouldn’t tell him his supervisor’s name. So McAdam snapped a picture of his uniform nameplate with his phone and tweeted it.

This was just one example in a tweetstorm McAdam unleashed against the officers and Anaheim police.

McAdam also tagged the Disneyland amusement park which is close to their hotel in one tweet, warning LGBTQ visitors the police will not protect them, and calling for the firing of Officer Uribe.

Can Body Cameras Lie?

All the officers wore body cameras, which McAdam hoped would support his claim. But instead, police say their review of the videos — three and a half hours in all — actually disproves every single claim he made against the officers. Sergeant Daron Wyatt responded to McAdam via Twitter, inviting the couple to come to headquarters and view the footage.

McAdam responded, via Twitter, and said as much to LGBTQ Nation: they will not go, based on how they were treated, he said, and called on the Anaheim P.D. to “release the tapes.”

The Investigation

Although he spoke to us, McAdam has so far not filed an official complaint with the police department. Sgt. Wyatt said Deputy Chief Julian Harvey ordered an immediate investigation within minutes of receiving an email from LGBTQ Nation, seeking information about the incident.

“When I received your email late last night,” Sgt. Wyatt wrote in an email response, “I notified our Deputy Chief who immediately tasked a Lieutenant with making an inquiry into the incident.

The Lieutenant, who is a Patrol Watch Commander, was not involved in the incident in any way. He reviewed the police report and approximately 3 ½ hours of Body Worn Camera footage. The Lieutenant’s review of the material did not support the claims and comments made by Mr. McAdam and outright refutes some of the claims. For example, McAdam claimed the officers would not provide their info and refused to identify their supervisor. The BWC shows the officers wrote their names down twice and ensured Mr. McAdam had the correct spelling. He never asked to speak with a supervisor, nor did he ask for the supervisor’s name.

Although he did not share the full report, Wyatt read aloud parts of the report in a phone conversation, in which he refuted McAdam’s claims one by one, saying the cameras did not show any of the officers making limp-wrist gestures, nor calling the couple “flamboyant,” or “boys.”  The cameras did, however, record McAdam telling Officer Avila to “fuck off.”

When asked if there was any possibility the officers, whose last names indicate possible Latino or Hispanic heritage, might have taken the side of the couple who appeared to be Hispanic accompanying  the tall, blonde man, Wyatt said he had no evidence of that but that would be investigated. He also revealed there are sections of the body cam video in which the officers are muted — typically, he said, that is done when officers meet with each other for private conversations — and that there were gaps in the recordings, when the body cameras were turned off. When asked how long they were turned off, and why, Wyatt said that also would be investigated. LGBTQ Nation has formally requested a copy of the recordings, and Wyatt invited us to accompany the couple to view the tapes ourselves, at police headquarters.

I responded to Mr. McAdam’s tweets indicating our findings and inviting him to come to APD and view the BWC footage with a police supervisor to try to clear the air. There are always differences in perception and maybe Mr. McAdam can show us where things happened on the BWC that he did not think he was treated fairly.

The Anaheim Police Department takes pride in the service we provide to all members of our community, including the LGBQT community.

McAdam replied to Wyatt’s email with an email statement of his own, saying in part:

I thank the Anaheim PD for the swift response to this issue and for immediately launching an investigation. Having stated that, this response does not detail several instances of my allegations, which occurred as the officers were speaking amongst themselves near their patrol car (it is my understanding by Anaheim PD’s own admission that they are allowed to mute and/or black out the BWC at various points, such as when speaking amongst themselves regarding an investigation). Two of my allegations – the limp hand wrist gesture near the patrol car, and Officer Uribe placing his hand on his weapon, would not have been captured by BWC. It is accurate the officers wrote down the information at the last minute – that’s after I took cell phone pictures of their names / badges (one was posted on Twitter of Officer Aliva) because – and BWC would show this if it was turned on – I stated, “I’m taking this because you’ve refused to give me your card three times, Officer”, to which Aliva responded, “I don’t have to get it to you on demand.”

Yes, I admit, I was extremely frustrated and upset. I apologized for the “fuck off” comment to Officers Uribe and Aliva a short time later – though that apology seems to be lost on their statement.

I have immense respect for First Responders – including the Police Officers who serve our country. I was a former volunteer fire cadet nearly twenty years ago in Arizona – and I have immense respect for those whom serve and risk their lives on a daily basis. I also have respect for myself and my family and will stand up for ourselves when things are not right. I respect and trust the police, otherwise I would not have made the originating call that launched this entire incident. Finally, my partner and I do not want money; we are after only an apology and a retraining of Anaheim PD towards LGBTQ issues: that’s the sole items we’re after for the sole purpose of others being treated with respect and dignity in the future.

The Hotel Chain Responds

McAdam, who remains a guest at the Disneyland-area hotel, also took to Twitter to sound-off about his unresolved beef with the hotel management.

At our request, a spokesperson for Interstate Hotels & Resorts, which manages the hotel for the International Hotel Group, issued a statement via email:

As a place of hospitality, we welcome guests from all over the world and do not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. As a place of business, we take any situation like this seriously along with the safety and security of our guests and associates. As this involved two guests at the hotel, it would be inappropriate for us to comment further. We are fully cooperating with the police regarding this incident. As this is currently under investigation, additional questions may be directed to the City of Anaheim police department.

– Brian Harris, Corporate Task Force General Manager, Interstate Hotels & Resorts

The tall man and his party checked out Thursday, according to McAdam, who responded to the hotel with a statement emailed to us. Below, an excerpt:

As guests of the establishment, we have never felt directly victimized or discredited in any way, shape, or form solely on the basis of sexual orientation and/or identity from any of the staff members. Our concern – on behalf of us and other guests of the hotel (mainly vacationing families) – is that immediate physical violence and the promise of future violence by a guest was allowed to occur towards us on property, on our floor, outside our room, with no recourse towards those guests from the hotel.

To be clear: this, on the hotel’s part, was not an act of discrimination based on sexual identity; it was and remains a woefully neglectful response to the physical safety of every guest – from the gay couple to the Midwestern traditional family. The guests’ comments and further dismissal by the police are where my issues involving LGBTQ discrimination come into effect.

McAdam made one more comment on the matter on Twitter, declaring he wasn’t looking for a fight with either the Anaheim police department or the hotel chain.

Sgt. Wyatt told LGBTQ Nation Friday that because of what officers learned from the independent witness and the body cams, there will be no action taken against the man who McAdam said attacked them; no court case, no charges, no nothing. That poses a huge disappointment for McAdam and Skyheart, who can still take the case to local prosecutors for re-examination. But it’s also yet another example of someone who is LGBTQ reporting a hate crime and having their complaint fall on deaf ears.

We will follow up once police conclude what happened during the time body cams were turned off and muted, and will share the video should it ever be released, in hopes it will shed more light on what was at the very least a frightening day in the lives of two gay men.

 

Editor’s Note: The original published report incorrectly identified the Anaheim deputy chief. Julian Harvey ordered the investigation into McAdam’s claims, not Deputy Chief Cahill. This story has been updated to reflect that. We regret the error.

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