Hate Crimes

So a few of my friends were victims of a hate crime this weekend. Well maybe, sorta. The story as I understand it goes roughly like this. My friends were drinkin' pretty good and one of the guys girlfriends wanted to go dancing and the only place within walking distance that she could dance was the gay bar. Now I wish I could have seen how she actually convinced these guys to go, they are fairly easy going about that stuff, but not normally that easy going. This is a small town after all. So they have a good enough time and are now entirely inebriated and begin that long stumble home. When who do they run into but a group of guys in a pick-up that had been in the same bar earlier, the obviously creative guys shout, "hey faggots." Which despite the fact that he was walking home with his girlfriend somehow this was an insult and being drunk such disrespect could not go unanswered. Now at this moment it sounds like a defuseable situation, if someone had grabbed my friend yelled a good insult back to the guys, probably something about the fact that they were with girls and the others weren't, then it might have been over right there. Or maybe not. When I first heard the story that was my thought, my friend does have a history of getting into fights but he's old enough now that they are quite rare and he feels bad about them, but with enough Jagermister anyones disposition can change. But after learning that this is not the first time the others have been in similar possible hate crime fights, its a small town they know who the guys are, I'm not sure this fight could have been prevented. It's fully possible that my friends could have avoided the fight but that just means it would have been someone else, and most likely people who were as good at defending themselves. Thats the only possible silver lining here and its a reasonable possibility. My guess is that these guys went into the bar looking for a target, they see the wasted guys covered in tattoo's. They probably thought, ok these guys won't run away from a fight but are too drunk to be able to fight, oh and of the guys one is average size but fairly thin, another is a little shorter and quite skinny, and the last is a jockey not a big guy, perfect. So they waited outside and when my friends came out they talked a little shit. My friend goes to the truck to "find out who said it" basically trying to punk the kid down, but the kid was with three of his friends and neither is about to back down. Pretty soon a hand swings by my friend and in quick succession he swings back, repeatedly. At this point the other guys hoop out of the truck, one of whom is carrying a blunt metal object of some sort, a pipe or a golf club no one is really sure. The details of the fight aren't all that critical but one girl got thrown into a pricker bush, the other girl got punched in the face, One guy got hit on the top of the head with the pipe/club, another guy got hit in the face with that same club, barely missed his eye, also got hit in the back quite a bit, and then there was the jockey who is my friends girlfriends brother, apparently he fought like hell which they probably didn't expect given his size and he got worked over bad. He is ok but in a neck brace. Some guy hits you with a club or whatever then punches your girlfriend and his friend is fighting your sister, yeah all bets are off at that point. So the good news is everyone is ok, I mean there are some injuries but everyone will heal, the guy that got hit in the face is going to have a bad-ass scar and I honestly don't know about the jockey, I don't know him and haven't heard full details of his condition. Given that we had a crew of guys out looking to kick some ass, it could have turned out much much worse(my cousin had a friend killed in a bar fight). Plus I'm willing to bet that the guys in the truck have their share of injuries too, although they didn't have a weapon used on them. But they could be facing some serious legal repercussions, especially if they can hit them with the Hate Crime status, but even without there is assault with a weapon, at least that guy is facing time. I don't really care what the punishment is so long as they learn not to do that shit again. So there you have it my story of friends who got beat for being gay, while walking with their girlfriends. What a town.