April 26, 2006
Memorial March Coverage and Impact
(photo by Andres Duque)
The April 15th Rashawn Brazell Memorial March was a success in more ways than one. In addition to showing the NYPD our determination to find justice for Rashawn, we also showed the press and the public that we are not willing to allow the case to be denied the visibility afforded to the white heterosexual women whose unfortunate murders have dominated the press.
The Advocate, the award-winning national LGBT news source, covered the march in their April 25th issue. The article, features quotes from co-founder Mervyn Marcano and marks the RBMF's first spot in a national magazine.
To view a scanned image of "Staying True to Rashawn", click here.
The march was also covered on Fox 5 New York. After the story aired, a link to RashawnBrazell.com was added to the website's "Viewer Information" section. At long last, the scholarship established to honor Rashawn's legacy was added to the area that had formely housed similar programs for white, straight murder victims Immette St. Guillen and Nicole DuFresne.
To view the listing, visit the "Viewer Information" page of the Fox 5 News website and click on Rashawn Brazell Fund.
The march was also attended and reviewed by several New York area bloggers, activists and photographers. Check out the following sites for original photography and more!
Ocean Morisette (41 photo slideshow),
Donald Agarrat (24 image photoset),
Andres Duque (139 pictures), whose noteworthy blog entry can be read here
and TaylorSiluwe (28 pictures).
The RBMF would like to thank The Advocate, Fox 5 News, Andres, Donald, Ocean and Taylor for the crucial work they have played and continue to play in keeping the story alive in the hearts and minds of the community at large.
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March 23, 2006
Rashawn Brazell Murder Progress Discounted
Police challenge Post account; victim’s mother expresses anger, doubt
BY PAUL SCHINDLER
A March 20 published report that police investigating the gruesome February 2005 murder and dismemberment of Rashawn Brazell—a 19-year-old African-American gay man from Bushwick—are trying to find a former neighbor in his 30s who was the victim’s lover, has drawn a firm denial from the NYPD and created confusion and anger for the young man’s family.
“They didn’t get that from us,” a spokesman for the NYPD’s deputy commissioner for public information said of a story Monday in the New York Post. “We are not saying that we are looking for somebody with whom the victim was acquainted.”
The DCPI spokesman added, however, “For us to say we are looking for somebody makes it that much harder to find them.”
That statement suggested that there could be police interest in a person not yet located.
Another police source told Gay City News that the thrust of the published report was “total BS,” but that “there is someone who needs to be spoken to.” That source emphasized that the man in question is not a suspect, and that while he is “an acquaintance [of Brazell’s], I wouldn’t even say he is a boyfriend. That is unknown.”
Continue reading "Rashawn Brazell Murder Progress Discounted" »
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March 22, 2006
On the New York Post Article: A Message from the RBMF
On March 20, The New York Post ran a story on a "new lead" in the investigation into Rashawn Brazell's murder. Because the RBMF shoulders the responsibilty of monitoring the case, as well as the coverage of his life and murder, we thought it was important to respond to what we see as poor journalism.
It comes as no surprise to those who follow Rashawn's story, and most New Yorkers for that matter, that the New York Post chose such a sensational title for its story ("Gay Beau Sought in Body Chop Slay"). By now, our frustration with the way the Post treats subjects who stand at the intersection of marginal identities has become commonplace. Are men who are suspected of murdering their girlfriends identified as straight in the headlines accompanying their stories? Of course not, but the Post keeps its circulation numbers up by concocting salacious headlines that normalize racism and homophobia.
While we aren't pleased with the article, we are even more troubled by its timing, and the implications therein. In monitoring the coverage of this case, we pay close attention to who covers Rashawn's story. This most recent story comes from Larry Celona, a Post reporter who covers grisly crimes across the city. He cites his source as a police representative, but for reasons unknown to us, the source seems to want to remain anonymous.
Because we are all too aware that many similar stories never get discussed in a newsroom, we remain encouraged that Rashawn's case still garners some coverage. But we must ask, why now? It is clear to us and to Desire Brazell, Rashawn's mother, that this information is not new. In fact, the police were told about the man in question within weeks of Rashawn's dissapearance last year. Surely, the police must have wanted to bring the man in for questioning at the time Rashawn's body was found. If not, that would highlight, at the very least, a serious lapse in judgment, if not responsibility, on the NYPD's end.
We also know that Ms. Brazell is planning a march on Rashawn's birthday (April 15) to the 79th precinct station house to demand answers about her son's murder. The police have asked her to cancel her march. To us, it seems all too convenient that the police would suddenly have a lead that necessitated communication with the New York Post, and not the mother of the victim. While that lead may be new to the reporter and the Post, it is all too old for Ms. Brazell and indeed the NYPD.
This leaves us with many questions and not too many answers. We at the RBMF, along with all of you who have taken an active interest in Rashawn's case, are committed to ensuring his story is told in the most straightforward and accurate manner. We also hope that the police are keeping their priorities in order and that they are not engaging in stealth PR tactics, which only serve to bolster the NYPD's cracking facade. As the cases of Immette St. Guillen and Nicole DuFresne received the appropriate amount of resources from the NYPD, we demand the same for the case of our brother, Rashawn.
Larry Lyons & Mervyn Marcano
Founders, RBMF
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March 20, 2006
New York Post: Suspect Sought in Murder of Rashawn Brazell
GAY BEAU SOUGHT IN BODY-CHOP SLAY
By LARRY CELONA
March 20, 2006 -- The gruesome slaying of a gay Brooklyn teen whose dismembered body was found in a subway tunnel - once sparking fears of a transit-worker killer - had an older lover whom cops now want to grill.
Investigators recently discovered that tragic aspiring Web-site designer Rashawn Brazell, 19, had a boyfriend who rented a room around the corner from Brazell's Gates Avenue home in Bedford-Stuyvesant, law-enforcement sources told The Post.
The older man - described by cops only as in his 30s and living on welfare - hasn't been seen since the death of Brazell, who vanished on Valentine's Day 2004, the sources said. The man is believed to have moved somewhere down South.
"We want to try and find this guy, identify him and talk to him," a police source said.
Three days after Brazell vanished, a subway worker found his legs, an arm and part of his torso in a blue plastic bag on the A-train line a few hundred feet north of the Nostrand Avenue station, which is close to Brazell's home.
Six days later, workers came across a bag containing Brazell's waist and pelvis at a Greenpoint recycling plant that serves a company that collects garbage along the A line.
His head has never been found.
On the last day Brazell was seen alive, he told people he was meeting a tax preparer, but cops have said that may have been a ruse.
Police ask anyone with information about the case to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS.
larry.celona@nypost.com
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March 04, 2006
America's Most Wanted Footage
Footage from America's Most Wanted's September 2005 report on the unsolved murder of Rashawn Brazell is now available online.
The ten minute segment is broken into two parts.
part one
If you can not view the video by clicking on the box above, you may
view part one by clicking here.
view part two by clicking here.
part two
Be advised: both segments contain graphic scenes that may be unsettling and inappropriate for some viewers.
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August 31, 2005
Fund-raiser brings in $2,500 in memory of slain Brooklyn teen
The New York Blade reports on the success of the scholarship launch party. Read the complete story here.
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August 30, 2005
Remembering Rashawn
The Gay City News provides images from the Sunday, August 28th scholarship launch party. Read the complete story here.
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August 05, 2005
Black Pride Amidst Crisis
Black Pride Amidst Crisis Summit, Weekend Events Geared to Ending HIV Menace, Anti-Gay Brutality
By DUNCAN OSBORNE
In 2001, a group of black gay men met in New York City to discuss what they saw as the shortcomings in science and studies about the lives in their community. There was not enough research on the lives of African-American gay and bisexual men and what little there was tended to focus on HIV and AIDS.
The men, now part of an organization with 20 members titled the Black Gay Research Group, will hold their second summit meeting August 4 and 5 that will draw 200 academics, health care and social service providers, researchers and others to the Marriott Hotel in downtown Brooklyn.
The two keynote speakers this year are author Keith Boykin, whose most recent book, “Beyond the Down Low: Sex, Lies and Denial in Black America,” made it onto to The New York Times bestseller list, and Dr. David J. Malebranche, an assistant professor at the Division of General Medicine at Emory University’s School of Medicine in Atlanta who has authored a number of studies on black gay men, HIV and how those men view doctors.
Boykin said he will talk about recent violence directed against gay and lesbian African-Americans including Sakia Gunn, Arthur Warren, Wanda Alston, Dwan Prince and Rashawn Brazell.
“In light of recent events, including violence against black gays and lesbians and homophobic remarks by black ministers, I’m going to use the speech to black gays and lesbians to call on them to stand up and be counted in this debate and not participate in our own oppression,” Boykin said.
Read the entire article at Gay City News.
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August 04, 2005
A Harlem Gathering to Fight Homophobia
NYS Black Gay Network leads clergy, political leaders at Riverside Church rally
By HANNAH SELIGSON
On Sunday, July 31, leaders in the gay and lesbian community, clergy members and elected officials hosted a meeting at Riverside Church to call attention to a series of violent attacks against African-American lesbian, gay and transgendered people in what the event’s organizers are calling a state of emergency.
In the first half of this year, two particularly brutal crimes garnered the city’s attention. On June 8, three men attacked Dwan Prince, a building porter, on a Brooklyn street. The three shouted anti-gay epithets and punched, kicked and stomped the 27-year-old victim, who is HIV-positive, leaving him semi-paralyzed after he emerged from a coma in Brookdale Hospital. Steve Pomie has been arrested in the case and faces bias-related assault charges. The two other men are still being sought by police.
On February 17, transit workers discovered the dismembered arm and two legs of Rashawn Brazell, a 19-year-old murder victim, stuffed in a plastic bag on subway tracks in Bushwick, Brooklyn. A week later, Brazell’s torso was discovered at a Greenpoint recycling plant. His other body parts are still missing and police have yet to discover the scene of the gruesome dismemberment. The murder remains unsolved and his mother, Desire Brazell, a social services worker, has become—like mothers of other slain gay and lesbian children—an advocate for tolerance and non-violence. Brazell attended Sunday night’s gathering in Riverside’s Assembly Hall, but left early after becoming overcome with emotion.
Read the full article at Gay City News.
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May 24, 2005
Newsday: So He Won't Be Forgotten
Rashawn Brazell would have turned 20 in April. Instead of a celebration, his birthday was marked with candlelight vigils and town hall meetings.
By then, his February murder had faded from headlines. But a growing number of New York-area bloggers, many of them African-American and gay, like Brazell, are keeping his memory, and the search for his killer, alive.
Thank you Newsday and Andrew LaVallee for presenting Rashawn’s story and our efforts with sensitivity and compassion.
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May 14, 2005
Brooklyn Family Values
Rashawn Brazell’s Mother Presses for Justice for Her Two Sons
By MICK MEENAN
“Some days are good, some bad,” Ms. Brazell said, clasping her hands on her lap. “Mother’s Day was the worst. Not having him burning up some pancakes in he kitchen making his annual breakfast for me,” she continued, with a warm smile so clearly meant for no one but the young man so irretrievably gone.
Last month, Jenata, the 27-year-old soft-spoken, older brother, who moved to Massachusetts as a teenager to avoid Bushwick’s violent street life, was arrested in Brooklyn for felony possession of a loaded firearm.
Read full article at GayCityNews.com
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April 08, 2005
Someone He Trusted
Since her son’s gruesome death, Desire Brazell has been left with her sorrow and confusion and has focused obsessively - not on the salacious headlines of a secret gay affair but on her son’s cell phone. The next morning, she called his friends and the police.
Desire Brazell said she didn’t know if her son was gay or bisexual and that she doesn’t care.
She believes his killer was someone he knew well.
“A friend killed him, someone he trusted,” she said.
The mom said her foreboding started when she couldn’t get through to him the morning he disappeared because his phone was turned off.
“It [didn’t] make any sense; he lived through his cell phone,” she said.
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March 24, 2005
Good Friday Vigil for Rashawn Brazell
This week, the community will gather to commemorate the life of Rashawn Brazell, a 19-year-old gay Brooklyn man murdered in February whose severed limbs were found inside the A line subway tunnel at Nostrand Avenue. Brazell’s torso was later found at a recycling plant.
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N.Y. man's killer at large; vigil planned
More than a month after 19-year-old Rashawn Brazell was brutally killed and dismembered, police are still hunting for suspects, while Brazell’s friends and some LGBT leaders have mobilized to draw attention to the tragedy.
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March 18, 2005
AVP wants meeting on murder
The New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project has called for an emergency meeting with George Grasso, First Deputy Commissioner of the New York Police Department. The group is concerned about how the police are treating the murder of Rashawn Brazell. The 19-year-old’s dismembered body was found on Feb. 17.
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March 15, 2005
AVP Calls for Meeting with NYPD Official
New York – Representatives from the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project (AVP) today announced today that they have requested an emergency meeting with George A. Grasso, First Deputy Commissioner of the New York Police Department to discuss AVP’s displeasure with the level of communication between the NYPD and the agency in the wake of last month’s gruesome murder of Rashawn Brazell.
National Coalition of Anti-violence Programs press release
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February 19, 2005
Man Sought in Killing and Dismemberment
By JENNIFER 8. LEE; WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM, ANN FARMER AND SEWELL CHAN CONTRIBUTED REPORTING FOR THIS ARTICLE. (NYT) 831 words
Published: February 19, 2005
Detectives investigating the slaying and dismemberment of a 19-year-old Brooklyn man were trying to find a man with whom they believe he had planned a tryst, a law enforcement official said yesterday.
But the police said they were unsure of the motive for the killing of Rashawn Brazell, whose limbs were discovered in a plastic bag early Thursday on the subway tracks two miles from his Bushwick home.
Investigators and Mr. Brazell's relatives yesterday were trying to piece together what happened between Monday morning, when he told family members that he was going to get his taxes done, and 3 a.m. Thursday, when his legs and one of his arms were found in a plastic bag, 200 feet from the Nostrand Avenue subway stop on the A line.
''We heard from friends that he was going to hook up with someone for a tryst,'' a police official said. ''The guy was from out of town, or they were going to go out of town.'' The police said that investigators had a first name for the man and were trying to track him down. They also said they were not investigating the killing as a bias crime.
Mr. Brazell's mother, Desire, said she had no knowledge of any boyfriend her son might have had. ''He had girlfriends,'' she said. She was left grasping for an explanation for the murder. ''The only thing I can think of is jealousy and hate,'' she said.
''He has been envied,'' she said of her son, a former clothing store salesman with a passion for stylish clothes and an interest in computer design. ''He was just too outgoing.''
Yesterday, at the apartment building on Gates Avenue where Mr. Brazell had lived with his family since the age of 2, candles, roses and a prayer mounted on a piece of wood formed a memorial in the lobby. ''My child was loved,'' Ms. Brazell said.
The family was unnerved enough by the mystery of the killer's motivation to change the locks on their apartment door, because Mr. Brazell's keys and identification had not yet been found. Mr. Brazell never did show up to get his taxes done on Monday, the police said. His mother said she became worried when he did not call home on Tuesday, as he did every day. When the family called his cellphone, it went immediately to voice mail -- an ominous sign for a son who always answered his phone. The family reported him missing on Wednesday.
On Thursday, the police notified the family about the discovery of his remains, which were identified with the help of fingerprint records from an old arrest, on a marijuana possession charge. His mother insisted that the drug charge was not significant. ''It was a joint,'' she said. ''He was never convicted.''
Friends and co-workers said that Mr. Brazell attracted attention for his stylish dress, ebullient personality and light brown eyes. ''He was very handsome and charming,'' said Shaquira Freeman, the human resources officer for Filene's Basement, who hired Mr. Brazell last fall. ''I remember at his orientation, everyone crowded around him. He was joking and laughing.''
Mr. Brazell designed and made some of his own clothes, friends said. In a neighborhood where baggy jeans and low-riding pants are almost obligatory, Mr. Brazell did not hesitate to don pressed suits or tight-fitting pants. He sought his job at Filene's to pay for his clothes, Ms. Brazell said. He was well respected at work for his knowledge of clothes. ''When I needed help on anything, he was there,'' said Glen Andrews, who supervised Mr. Brazell at the store. ''I looked for him.''
But Mr. Brazell quit in January after a disagreement with a boss, Mr. Andrews said. His family said he had been hunting for a job but wanted to study Web design.
News of his death reverberated through the hallways in a building where neighbors gather on the stoop on languid summer nights. Residents remember playing double Dutch with Mr. Brazell when they were children. ''We're like family,'' said Luis Perez, the building superintendent, who has known Mr. Brazell's family for more than 17 years. ''The family is in mourning. The whole building is in mourning.''
He closed his door, crying.
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