Cyclists escape arson attack possibly a hate crime
Hi folks, not to politicize the board at all but just thought we should be aware.
(Honor, Michigan) Dozens of sleeping gay cyclists scrambled for their lives as an arsonist set fire to their campsite in Benzie County, Michigan. About 75 members of Friends North were on a summer bike outing. Twenty in the group set up camp near the town of Honor and bedded down for the night Sunday.
About 12:30 a.m. a member of the group awoke to find a portable toilet on fire and flames spreading to nearby belongings. The cyclist woke up the others fearing the fire would spread to the dry grass and encircle them.
Flames were shooting 20 feet in the air a member of the group said.
Later, about two dozen hate messages were found scattered throughout the area.
"We're all very devastated," Friends North member Rose Clement of Grawntold the Record-Eagle. "If that fire would've spread into the field, this could've been horrific."
"There was some very foul, very mean-spirited stuff," said Kirk Mallow, a Friends North board member who also had a rainbow flag taken in the incident. "It was pretty scary."
The messages were taken into evidence by Benzie County sheriff's deputies. The sheriff's department released no information Sunday on the incident. Organizers said some messages had swastikas and the letters "KKK" scribbled on them.
It was the first incident in the 13 years that Friends has run the bike tour weekend that attracts people from throughout the US and Canada.
by 365Gay.com News centre Staff, ©365Gay.com® 2004
