The Daily Tar Heel
URL: http://www.dailytarheel.com/index.php/article/2011/04/unc_freshman_says_he_was_burned_as_part_of_a_hate_crime
Current Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:15:16 -0500
Gay UNC student attacked, burned in hate crime
University informs students one week later
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Quinn Matney, a freshman Chemistry major from Asheville, received third- and fourth-degree burns outside Craige Residence Hall as part of a hate crime on April 4, which injured his left wrist. Matney wants to raise awareness to keep the GLBT community safe.
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Update: The Department of Public Safety has determined that the alleged assault reported to campus last night did not occur. That report, filed with campus police on April 5, was false. The University will not report it as a hate crime. Click here for our update on the story.
Quinn Matney was having trouble sleeping.
As the freshman took a walk on South Campus at about 3 a.m. on April 4, he said he ran into an acquaintance on the Craige Residence Hall footbridge. As the two spoke, a man sitting at a nearby picnic table stood up and grabbed him by the wrist, he said.
“Here’s a taste of hell you f—-ing fag,” Matney remembered the man saying.
The man branded Matney, who is gay, on the left wrist with an unidentified object, causing third- and fourth-degree burns that damaged three nerves and a tendon, leaving the freshman with no feeling in his thumb and limited mobility in his index finger, he said.
Matney said he tried to pull away — but the man didn’t let go until he received a hard punch to the face.
Matney said he then walked away quickly, trying to distance himself from the man and his two friends, who both appeared drunk.
“I’ve seen him two or three times before this, always out on that same bridge,” Matney said of the man, whose identity is unknown.
Jeff DeLuca, co-chairman of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Straight Alliance, said he is alarmed by the administration’s silence on the attack.
University officials did not officially comment until a post on Alert Carolina on Monday evening, a week after the incident.
“A very blatant hate crime against a GLBT individual occurred on this campus, and we only heard about it by word of mouth,” DeLuca said.
The man is being sought on charges of aggravated assault, said Jeff McCracken, chief and director of the Department of Public Safety.
“We don’t have any suspect information that we could comment on at this point in time,” he said.
UNC plans to report the incident as a hate crime to the federal government, Chancellor Holden Thorp said in a formal notice email Monday.
Matney said he thinks the man who attacked may have overheard conversations with friends in the past that might have revealed his sexual orientation.
After going to the emergency room and leaving after hours of waiting the night of April 4, Matney said he received treatment at Campus Health Services the next day. Only then did he file a police report.
The man appeared to be a white 19-year-old, standing 5 feet 10 inches, with a large build and short brown hair, he said.
Matney is also trying to find the acquaintance he saw at the footbridge to corroborate his report. The witness, he said, was a male student he recognized but does not know by name.
DeLuca said GLBTSA is holding a public forum to discuss the incident during its regular Thursday meeting, and has invited school administrators to attend.
“The community has a right to feel kind of shocked and scared by what happened, but we’re here to try to allay those fears and let people know about the resources available and also to address the issue of how the student body was notified,” he said.
“At GLBTSA our main concern, though, is making sure that we rally up around Quinn and do everything we can to support him in this time where he needs our community’s support the most.”
Winston Crisp, vice chancellor for student affairs, said current notification methods warn students when there is an immediate danger.
Crisp, who will attend the group’s Thursday meeting, said these policies are being reviewed, especially following last week’s armed robbery.
“We have learned from feedback from the campus on recent events there may be a need for another level of information that we push out to the campus,” he said.
Matney said doctors told him he will need to visit the burn unit and go through two weeks of occupational therapy for his injury, and that he might need surgery.
“Despite the horridity of the event, it has let me see how much my community loves me,” he said.
Contact the University Editor at university@dailytarheel.com.
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56 comments
That’s crazy that this villain was is so intent on burning particular persons due to their perceived sexual preference that he was waiting on a bridge at 3 a.m., for his victim to come to him while actively keeping some sort of object hot enough to cause terrible burns.
Unacceptable.
This is an appalling breach of humanity. Quinn: The Carolina Family is here for and loves you.
This is outrageous, but not unrealistic. Whether you’re in Provincetown or Mobile, arm yourself. You don’t need a gun, just something, combat training, pepper spray, anything. I don’t want what happened to Quinn, or anything worse, to happen to anyone else. The first step to prevent an attack starts with yourself and no one else.
It is a sickening failure on the part of the university to have left the community uninformed about this horrific attack for almost a week.
What’s even more sickening is that the only reason UNC didn’t release information sooner seems to be because of the victim’s sexual orientation.
Say this attack had happened to an average freshman girl. No one can tell me it wouldn’t be on the front page of everything the next day.
UNC owes further explanation.
I certainly hope that the person who witnessed this incident comes forward to help in finding this dangerously bigoted man. In the meantime, I hope that the student body will rally around Quinn and show him that we all support him.
This angers me on so many levels. Its truly disturbing to know that somebody on or around this campus could be so hateful to do something this terrible. Spread the word of this to anyone you can, the community has to stand up and say that this is not okay and completely unacceptable.
On that note, why was this not widely reported for over a week? I heard about this through word of mouth days before it was ever reported.
You would expect Chapel Hill to be the last place for a crime like this.
This is horrifying! Matney released an image of the actual burn and it has me in tears!
I am livid that the University kept the community uninformed, especially when catching this individual is time sensitive. This is infuriating.
I am so proud of the Tarheel family for coming together to support one of our own who was attacked. This should never happened on our campus! We won’t stand for it!
While we are all hastening to crucify the alleged assailant, we are ignoring some of the facts of the story that cause one to question the validity of the whole scenario.
We are to assume the attacker, with the intent of committing a hate crime, intentionally waited at a bench until 3 in the morning? The fact that a man who the victim claims to be unable to recognize somehow is aware of his sexual orientation? While I know this accusation will receive large amounts of backlash, it is not inconceivable that Matney’s burns were self-inflicted as a means of raising attention to an issue that is important to him, although in this case nonexistent. Already the UNC community has reacted strongly in opposition to hate crimes, as Matney could have conceivably planned and intended it to.
Before lashing out at this post, consider the logic of the theory and the haste with which we are demolishing the supposed “attacker” who has not even been given an identity.
This is horrible. Stay strong Quinn! The Carolina Family is behind you. <3
I think it’s up to university officials and the police to decide whether this story is true or false, not those of us in the peanut gallery who have limited knowledge of what occurred. And since both the university and the police have already taken a week to investigate this, and they have come out supporting Quinn, it’s pretty clear that this is not some made-up story, but rather a real and scary incident. It’s important at times to question and be skeptical, but now, considering the information we have, it’s just inappropriate. Quinn, we are behind you 100%.
Absolutely disgusting. It’s scary to see this hatred so pent up in areas we consider to be so progressive.
Everyone, guy or girl, gay or straight, please be careful walking home late at night. There is a great service in NYC called RightRides (www.rightrides.org) that I used to volunteer for – someone should think about starting a branch at UNC. Picks you up and drives you home safely, run entirely by volunteers.
To suggest that Quinn did this to himself is disgusting. I saw a photo of the burn itself, not just the bandage. It is a 3rd and 4th degree, and a very nasty one—someone does not simply inflict such an injury upon oneself, and certainly not in an attempt to create some imaginary story of a hate crime.
To speculate that Quinn self-inflicted the burns is NOT a reasonable discussion question, but a purposeful attempt to discredit him simply because he is gay.
Quinn, if you’re reading this, I support you and stand behind you. I’m keeping you in my thoughts and will tell others to keep you in their thoughts (and, for those that do, in their prayers).
This is unacceptable. I’m really disappointed that this happened on our campus, and even more disappointed that the administration didn’t mention any of this to the student population. We get emails about sexual assault and various other crimes. I would like to know when stuff like this happens.
Hopely, this student will stay at Carolina and heal in time.
how could anyone seriously think quinn would make something like this up? anyone who knows him knows that he would never do something like this to draw attention to himself. you should be ashamed for even thinking that a person could make up a story like this just for attention’s sake.
how could anyone really suggest that quinn made this whole thing up to get attention? anyone that knows him knows that he hates this kind of attention. you should be ashamed for even suggesting that someone would fabricate a story like this for personal gain.
I find it fascinating that people are questioning the validity of the victim’s story. I don’t know the kid, but I do know that hate crimes happen and they are sometimes random and ridiculous. At no point did he say or imply that it was a premeditated attack, and to accuse someone of doing that to himself for attention is in itself appalling, and makes it more apparent that homophobia is among the Chapel Hill community.
If it were about something like race, rather than sexual orientation, would Quinn’s truthfulness even be in question?
I hope you get better soon, Quinn! How are random guys just sitting around at benches at 3am without anyone (DPS?) asking a question or checking for a One Card. In light of this atrocity and the stupidity of some Morrison residents, I think more needs to be done with One Cards to confirm people being in the right place at night. Especially now that the weather has gotten warm enough at night, it seems like more people who are just out to start trouble have been sitting around campus looking for t. I don’t know; I really hate the idea that the Chapel Hill community would allow heinous acts that would justify concealed weapons or roving bands of armed vigilantes, but if random people (let’s be honest; these aren’t students committing these crimes, although they may be accomplices) are not being kept off our campus by DPS, then maybe it is time to reconsider our stance on self-defense. I’m not necessarily saying that Quinn would have had a Glock on him, ready to go, but since criminals seem to be getting the correct impression that DPS doesn’t represent the kind of threat that they should, maybe it’s time for the students and potential victims themselves to represent that threat.
David, so, because Quinn was out at 3 in the morning, he was AUTOMATICALLY looking for sex, because he’s gay. Yeah. Because when straight people are out at that time, it’s innocent. Gay men look for trouble all the time at that time of night, huh? And basically wishing him dead. You clearly have severe issues, and anger for no reason. A lot like this attacker.
This is a horrible story. UNC is a nice, progressive place and stories like this damage the reputation of this school. A question I have is, what was the attacker carrying that was so hot, that it would cause that much damage so quickly? It doesn’t look like a cigarette burn.
No-one should allow themselves to walk in fear of their safety. That is what these bigots want to do, put fear into the innocent. These anti-gay hate crimes are done solely out of insecurity with ones’ self. These people have severe issues. No-one should take for granted the fact that crazy people are everywhere, and even though the world has progressed in many ways, there is still a lot of irrational ignorance and fear. It’s incidents like these where we all have to rally around each other and be strong, make sure the attacker is sought and have justice prevail.
I am a graduate of a UNC-CH graduate school and taught Western Civilization there as part of my duties. I recall being dumbfounded by the “bible people” students who insisted the world was only 6000 years old, that historians “made things up” about adulterous Renaissance popes, that the Founding Fathers intended for the Constitution to be based on scripture, and all other kinds of wrong-headed and demonstrably wrong ideas. I hope they find this criminal and put him behind bars.
Some people love to blame the victim. Regardless of it’s a hate crime and what trait is being picked out and attacked. You must have brought on the attack, otherwise it wouldn’t have happened. Um, some people are just crazy. And when you have someone who seems to have had anti-gay religious indoctrination, and they are drunk and it’s 3 AM, this person is even crazier and not in their right mind. I don’t understand why some people hold so much hostility and hatred towards a group of people who do literally ZERO to deserve it. Literally nothing. Clearly, it’s insecurity, paranoia and personal issues, but to take it out on an innocent person like this is just really…….it’s like how can someone have so little humanity. And David’s comment shows that there is still a long way to go to see true change and see homophobia eliminated. Homophobia may be more isolated but it’s still a major issue, and not one anyone can take for granted, because it can strike at any moment.
I wish The Daily Tarheel would publish some of the remarks people are making here about this horrific crime. Not only does this kind of crime happen, but a full third of the people who comment on this article see fit to question Matney’s integrity, presumably (and sometimes statedly) because of his identity (see commenter David Hartman: “Too bad this pervert wasn’t pushed off the bridge. This story makes no sense whatsoever unless this homo was out for a public hookup.”).
We need to be more aggressive as a community in condemning these kinds of comments and more proactive in providing mental health services to those who exhibit this quasi-sociopathic lack of empathy for others who have been victimized. General acceptance of these attitudes emboldens those who hate, and enables them to victimize others and then say something equating this violence to a moral act.
I heard comments such as David Hartman’s many times from drunk male students at 3AM when I was an undergraduate, while not one of their surrounding friends daring to call them out. Just as often, I saw friends intervene and tell their raging, oblivious cohorts to chill out. Be proud to be the reasonable adult in this situation. Call out the douchebags, y’all.
Well wishes from NC State. Keep your head up and be proud of who you are. There will always be someone who doesn’t approve, but there will be 100s more who do. “Those who mind dont matter and those who matter don’t mind”
It doesn’t matter if he’s gay, straight, white, black, secretly a woman, or a unicorn made of toast. I think it’s whack that it took university officials a week to inform the student body that someone was assaulted on campus. I did my undergrad at another university and I know that they send out emails (and texts if you sign up for them) informing everyone of ANYTHING that happens on campus within 24 hours of the incident being reported.
That being said, it opens another can of worms – would it have taken so long if it had been a good, old fashioned straight on straight crime, hm?
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