i was refering to his police record of DUI and failure to pay child support. also, he gave detectives conflicting stories of how the kids came to be at his house (whether they walked over on their own or he took them with him when he left the party). in explaining the discrepency the defense noted that Bell was intoxicated so he might have gotten mixed up.

again, i’m not in any way trying to rationalize the brutal actions of his attackers. i just don’t think it’s clear that his sexual orientation was a major factor. still, i could be wrong.

as for the DA who brought kidnapping charges, i’m much more suspicious of gay profiling. i hope someone is able to shed some light on how that decision was made.

It was an honor to be there when he was acquitted of a crime he did NOT commit! It never should have gotten this far. I hope the people who did this to him get charged to the fullest extend of the law. As for the South Salt Lake City Police, they messed with the life of a good person. They are an embarassment to law enforcement!

The mob might have just been drunk and stupid, but I dont see how anyone can defend the authorities trying to charge them on such flimsy pretext for kidnapping and make no attempt whatsoever to file charges against the angry mob. it doesnt matter if they kidnapped them or not, once you have the kids back its illegal to assault them, their was a big ruckus in Texas afew years ago because a guy shot a burglar in the back as he was fleeing, he got charged because the burglar wasnt a danger when he shot him. Theirs no way two men were a danger to the angry mob.

If this “mother” was so damned worried about the safety of her kids she should have been paying attention to them. It’s a shame that these two people who valued the welfare of these kids more than their own parents did had to go through this. I guess it’s true that no good deed goes unpunished!

How do you know that?

South Salt Lake, where this happened, is not like Utah as a whole. it is ethnicly diverse and heavily Democratic. it’s also economically marginal and suffers from a high crime rate. in fact, there was a high profile case of a child kidnapped and murdered by a (straight) neighbor in South Salt Lake earlier the same year as this incident.

so while Utah is close to the worst state in the nation on gay issues, the neighborhood where this happened could just as easily have been in any urban area in the county. i don’t think the motives of the attackers are completely clear cut and Bell – while not an ex-con – is not a squeaky clean character himself.