The strange, sad story of Jesse Valencia

[MadHound]

I thought about putting this in the local forum, but I think it is a good opportunity to explore the macho, homophobic subculture of police, athletes, and other "tough guy" professions. Here is the deal.

A couple of weeks ago, June 5, the body of Jesse Valencia was found in the East Campus neighborhood of Columbia Mo. Jesse's throat had been slit, and his body left out in the open. After some beating around the bush, it was made official that a police officer was "a person of interest" in the case. This officer, Scott Rio, immediately went on personal leave, and then had suicide standoff with the police before being talked down after a couple of hours.

Shortly thereafter it gradually emerged that Rio, a married man, had been involved in a sexual relationship with Valencia. Apparently Rio was feeling threatened by Valencia and their relationship and was becoming ever more threatening to Valencia(according to Valencia's mother). Valencia finally told Rio to back off or he was going to go to the Columbia Police Chief with the whole story. Shortly after wards Valencia turns up dead.

The CPD is still calling Rio a "person of interest" in the case, though he is still under protective custody at the Fulton State Mental Hospital due to his suicide attempt. Rio has resigned the police force, and the police have searched his residence and seized some items, though a key item(a folding knife) cannot be found, and Rio is denying witnesses claims that he owned such a knife. There are no other suspects in the case, nor "persons of interest". The CPD I think is slowly, guardedly, edging around to the notion that it is going to have to bring down one of it's own, a never before considered prospect in this town. I also think that the role of homosexuality in the department has the CPD on edge.

This brings me around to a few thoughts I've been mulling while this case unfolds. It is my feeling that in an occupation such as police, fire, athletics, etc, the hyper-macho attitude can be absolutely devastating if you are gay or bisexual. Here we have a man, a police officer, attracted to another man. This police officer is so afraid of the repercussion to himself if it becomes public knowledge that he is gay, that apparently he is willing to kill both his accuser and himself in order to not deal with the consequences of this knowledge.
A very very sad state of affairs.

What can be done to break through this shell of hyper-machismo? We all know that there are gay athletes, and while lesbian athletes are accepted, and even expected, gay male athletes are shunned, persecuted and ostracized to the point that some members of these hyper macho professions feel that they need to resort to intimidation, deception and violence in order to remain in the closet. How do we, as a society, lessen the stigma of being gay in a hyper-macho profession? Do we continue to try to lessen the stigma of being gay in our society at large, or do we need to lessen the machismo level in these traditionally "tough guy" professions?

I've included a link to the latest chapter in this story which is also linked to the previous chapters.<http://www.digmo.org/news/story.php?ID=7929>
So what do you people think?

[MadHound]

1. Kick n/t

[MadHound]

2. Kick

I strangely hear the sound of crickets, why?

[redqueen]

3. BIG news day

I didn't see this thread till just now.

Seems to me that a large part of the reason that macho men are so hung up on being macho is that they're taught that feminine traits are bad. Stop teaching that, and maybe it'll help.

It's a complex issue and I'm sure there are many other ways to prevent the problem of men being so afraid of being perceived as less than 100% macho that they'd kill others and themselves.

[redqueen]

4. Hello?

:kick:

Any more comments?