Gay Puerto Rican Teen’s Murderer Fit To Stand Trial.
Just two weeks after President Obama signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law, Jorge Steven López Mercado was brutally murdered – then decapitated, dismembered, and burned – by Juan José MartÃnez Matos, who confessed to the brutal hate crime.
He has been held and was undergoing psychiatric evaluation for the past month. Matos had undergone – and “failed†– a psychiatric evaluation, last month.
Puerto Rico’s Governor Luis Fortuño may be even almost as reviled as Matos right now. He has refused to speak on the hate crime – even refusing to label it a hate crime. Federal authorities had to threaten to invoke the Matthew Shepard Act’s resources in order to have the crime investigated and prosecuted as a hate crime.
Adding insult to injury, Governor Fortuño recently went on record in front of a group of religious leaders, stating he supports a ban on same-sex marriage, and supports it with a possible amendment to the Constitution of Puerto Rico.