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Los Angeles Dad Allegedly Murdered His Son For Being Gay

By Aaron Homer
Published on: 03:40 PST, Apr 2, 2016

A Los Angeles man has been charged with murder for allegedly killing his son because he was gay, The Los Angeles Daily News is reporting.

Sixty-nine-year-old Shehadeh Khalil Issa was arrested for murder as well as a hate crime for killing his 29-year-old son, Amir, outside of a home where Shehadeh’s wife was found stabbed to death. As of this writing, the woman’s death remains under investigation, and it is not clear if there is any connection between Amir’s murder and the woman’s murder.

Issa claimed that he was at the home when he heard noises, so he grabbed a shotgun for protection. According to Issa’s account, he encountered his son armed with a knife and shot the young man in self-defense.

However, Operations Valley Bureau homicide Detective John Doerbecker says that Issa’s story didn’t hold up.

“The suspect made incriminating statements implicating himself in the death of (the son) and was arrested for murder. He claimed (the son) was armed with a knife, and there was no knife to be found (there). It was a horrible family tragedy.”

Shehadeh and Amir had had a history of problems, according to police and neighbors. Amir had been accused of vandalizing the family home, and his parents were in the process of evicting him when the murder occurred. Neighbors said that they frequently heard screaming matches between father and son.

Prosecutors also said that Shehadeh had threatened to murder Amir on multiple occasions because he was gay, according to The Associated Press.

Prosecutors are seeking hate crime charges, in addition to murder charges, against Shehadeh because Amir was considered a member of a specific class of people covered by California’s hate crime laws.

“The murder was committed because of the victim’s sexual orientation and because of the defendant’s perception of that status and the victims’ association with a person and a group of that status.”

According to The L.A. Times, gays, as a community, are far more likely to be victims of a hate crime than any other group. One in four crimes classified as hate crimes affect the LGBTQ community, and the numbers keep getting worse. Since 2014, the number of hate crimes against the LGBTQ community has risen by 14 percent, and hate crimes specifically targeting gay men have risen 31 percent.

Jim Key, spokesman for the Los Angeles LGBT Center, said that he sees LGBTQ children victimized by their parents far too frequently.

“It’s horrific. Despite all the civil rights victories we’ve had in the last few years, we still live in a society where people face violence or even murder by their parents, simply by being open about their sexual orientation or gender identity. We see this all the time at the center in the faces of the kids who come to us, all over the country, because they no longer feel safe in their home.”

In 2012 in Oregon, according to Huffington Post, Jessica Dutro allegedly beat her 4-year-old son, Zachary, to death because she thought he was gay. Prosecutors alleged that Dutro kicked her son in the abdomen while wearing a shoe.

Similarly, in Texas, also in 2014, James Larry Cosby was charged with killing his daughter and her girlfriend. Britney Cosby, James’ daughter, died of blunt force trauma; her girlfriend Crystal Jackson was shot.

Shehadeh Khalil Issa is currently in an L.A. jail and scheduled to be arraigned on April 11. If convicted of all charges, he faces life in prison without the possibility of parole.

[Image via Shutterstock/Fer Gregory]

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