Left to Right: Juan Carlos Cruz/Nelson Hernandez Mena (Photo: WPEC-CBS 12/Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office)
According to witnesses, a Florida man was killed early Sunday because he was standing up for his gay friends against homophobic threats and insults.
Juan Javier Cruz, 22, was at the Restaurante y Pupuseria Las Flores when another customer confronted him and his group of friends as they were leaving the restaurant, according to a Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office report.
“I hate you damned gays. I’m going to kill you all here,” the man said, according to witnesses cited in the report. “If we were in my country I’d kill all of you like rats.”
Witnesses claimed that the man then pulled out a handgun and began to shoot. Cruz stepped in front of his friends to defend them and was shot and killed. Another man was shot in the ankle.
The shooter has since been identified as Nelson Hernandez Mena, who is a Honduran national. He told police that he was “very drunk” after having between 15 and 20 beers and that “he didn’t intend to hurt anyone,” according to the Sun Sentinel.
Mena now faces charges of first-degree murder, attempted murder and aggravated assault with a firearm, according to the Palm Beach Post, though a spokesperson for the Palm Beach State Attorney’s Office said that it was too early to determine whether Mena would also face hate crime charges.
Meb112 on August 9th, 2017 at 14:00 UTC »
"I hate you damned gays. I’m going to kill you all here"
Shoots and kills a man
"Too early to know if he will face hate crime charges."
wut. Hate, check. Crime, check.
Seems like an open and shut case to me.
the_kevlar_kid on August 9th, 2017 at 13:11 UTC »
The worst part of this is the victims did in many ways exactly what you should do; walk away. There's no winning an argument with such a person, especially when they're drunk. The right course of action IMO is to not engage at all, get out and ignore the provocation. But the asshole, murderer followed them.
RIP- Floridaman. You are a Floridahero.
galorin on August 9th, 2017 at 11:57 UTC »
I would really like to read the story, rather than whatever the heck that website is trying to do...
Anyhow, praise our fallen hero, truly the hero that Florida needed.