From a normally sleepy tourist town comes some terrible news: a gay couple say they were attacked by a group of men on the beach and beaten to the point of unconsciousness.

The two 22 and 23 year-old men, Samson Deal and Kevin Petterson, came to Seaside on spring break from nursing school in Washington, according to KOMO news. Late Saturday night, the pair wandered away from a group of friends around a beach campfire and ran into a group of three or four men dressed in black.

“All of the sudden, someone asked if were gay, called us ‘fags,’ then started punching us,” said Deal on KOMO. The two woke up bleeding and with swollen faces. “It’s upsetting to know people can be so angry… you don’t really know what kind of people are out there until something like this happens.”

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Samson and Kevin: Braving the attention to talk about their assault.

Samson doesn’t have health insurance and estimates his medical bills could top $1,500 – I’m trying to dig up any information about where we could send donations. Seaside Police Chief Bob Gross told me that they have two detectives assigned to investigating the crime (out of their total 20-person police force), but have not turned up any new information yet about who the suspects could be. “We’ve had some hate crimes before, mostly threats,” says Gross, “But I have never dealt with anything this serious.” If you have any information call the Seaside police at (503) 738-6311.

Sarah Shay Mirk reported on transportation, sex and gender issues, and politics at the Mercury from 2008-2013. They have gone on to make many things, including countless comics and several books.

24 replies on “Anti-Gay Hate Crime in Seaside”

  2. “Normally sleepy tourist town”? I thought Seaside was a tacky playground for drunk fratboy trash, drunk fratboy-wannabes, and the drunk skanks who love them.

  3. I hate to be the cynic, but I’m holding my breath for the real story to come out. That’s photo isn’t the look of two out of two people getting beaten “unconcious”, and going to the media with a “we got jumped” story has a pretty bad habit of of unraveling into something else.

    Inb4 homophobe apologist, etc…

  9. Cynical Boxxy, is the story of two men getting gay-bashed not a “real” story? Because this story happens every single fucking day. And yes, I do think that you sound like a homophobe apologist.

  10. John T, I’m not sure why “I am withholding judgment on a currently one sided story” is any less reasonable a position than “I automatically support the veracity of people that pull my ideological heart-strings”. Could you point out exactly what about my position is inherently homophobic? I’m curious.

  11. It looks more like they simply got into a scrap rather than getting “beaten to the point of unconsciousness”. They could be exaggerating a bit but that’s understandable if you’ve just been beaten up. I could be wrong. Either way, picking a fight with someone simply because they’re gay is appalling.

  12. Then again, one well placed punch to the temple can shut out the lights for a few moments. No, I’m not a doctor but I do feel for them.

  13. Yeah the one part of the story that seemed odd was that they “woke up bleeding and with swollen faces”. The likelihood that they were both knocked unconscious– yet didn’t sustain any serious injuries– is slim.

    I’m guessing it’s either sloppy reporting or a less-than-true account of what transpired. I don’t doubt that a fight took place and the other side let loose some derogatory comments.

    The Oregonian is now reporting that the attackers “might have been at the same campfire” as the victims.

  15. OK, my apologies for the above link, it as meant to go in an entirely different thread, where the humor would have been appropriate. I pasted it into the wrong window, and I did not mean to bring this up here, given the seriousness of this topic. If a moderator wishes to remove it, that’s fine by me.

  17. Thanks, Graham… it’s just not my day today. I’ve screwed up in two different comment threads in the same day. Not my style. I’m not sure if that means I need more coffee or less coffee, or if I should just use more alcohol to forget the whole thing.

  18. Visitors to Oregon lack the knowledge to know that only the major urban areas in our state are liberal and open-minded. The rest of the state is conservative, Republican, and non-accepting of those different than themselves. Granted, most of the state’s population is concentrated in urban areas, but the bulk of the state’s land area is occupied by the ignorant. Sadly, there will be a lot of people who cry foul over this attack, but there will be very few who step-up to actually help these young men. The gay community in our state is filled with medical and legal professionals who could step-up to help these men, where are they? What about the wealthy gay men in our community such as Gus Van Sant; why aren’t they stepping-in to pay their medical bills?

  19. “Visitors to Oregon lack the knowledge to know that only the major urban areas in our state are liberal and open-minded. The rest of the state is conservative, Republican, and non-accepting of those different than themselves.”

    I’ve been here about 6 years and it took me a while to understand this.

  20. “”Visitors to Oregon lack the knowledge to know that only the major urban areas in our state are liberal and open-minded. The rest of the state is conservative, Republican, and non-accepting of those different than themselves.”

    That is why it’s wonderful to be a white hetero-normative male in America. I don’t have to worry about shit like this. White privelege FTW!

  22. Boxxy, it’s very brave of you to stand so strongly for the truth that you would forgo breathing until it arrives. Continue your principled stand…for an hour or two, please.

  23. Does the validity or severity of the injuries lessen or increase the fact that it was a hate crime? Calling someone a “fag” in a derogatory manner is a hate crime, punishable by law, even if the fight is instigated by a member of the LGBTQ population (which I doubt it was in this case). I might also add, that words can hurt as bad as a punch to the face. Boxxy’s argument is meaningless. These guys could have been assaulted with a fish, sustained no injuries, and still be completely justified in seeking help and creating outcry for anti-gay sentiments. Who cares how bad the injuries were… the fact of the matter is that the people who did this need to be found and brought to justice. Seaside as community should hold marches, protests, and vigils in honor of their queer community members and everyone should be taught that behavior like this in unacceptable in Oregon.

  24. Does the validity or severity of the injuries lessen or increase the fact that it was a hate crime? Calling someone a “fag” in a derogatory manner is a hate crime, punishable by law, even if the fight is instigated by a member of the LGBTQ population (which I doubt it was in this case). I might also add, that words can hurt as bad as a punch to the face. Boxxy’s argument is meaningless. These guys could have been assaulted with a fish, sustained no injuries, and still be completely justified in seeking help and creating outcry for anti-gay sentiments. Who cares how bad the injuries were… the fact of the matter is that the people who did this need to be found and brought to justice. Seaside as community should hold marches, protests, and vigils in honor of their queer community members and everyone should be taught that behavior like this in unacceptable in Oregon.

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