At around 2 a.m. on March 9, a security camera outside of Precinct, a gay bar in downtown Los Angeles, caught two men dressed in black and carrying cocktail glasses walking around the corner from the bar’s main entrance. They entered an exterior hallway leading to the bar’s employee entrance.
The men set their glasses on a nearby railing, unzipped their pants, and appeared to urinate in a corner between the door and the entranceway.
In the video, two other men are seen passing by the entranceway but not entering it, just moments as the taller of the two men appears to zip up his fly and looks around furtively. The video cuts out shortly after that.
The video was posted to Precinct’s Instagram account, along with a clearer picture of two men — taken from inside the bar — whose attire appears to match those of the men urinating.
According to the Instagram post, the men then rounded the corner, where one of the managers spotted the drinks and tried to take them away. The larger of the two men “reacted by physically assaulting him, throwing him to the ground.”
It remains unclear if the employee was injured during the altercation.
“Precinct is a safe space for all; let’s have a good time. Don’t be a dick,” Precinct’s Instagram post reads. “Oh, yeah, we also have several bathrooms.”
According to Out, which first reported on the incident, several drag performers familiar with the bar began reacting to the post, with RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 4 alum Willam, who hosts the Race Chaser podcast, tagging the private Instagram account of Crescenta Valley Town Councilmember Chris Kilpatrick.
Other commenters also identified Kilpatrick as the taller man in both the photo and video.
Kilpatrick was elected in 2020 to the Crescenta Valley Town Council, which represents the Los Angeles suburbs of Montrose, Sunland, and La Cañada Flintridge, along with sections of Glendale.
He ran on a platform of promoting public safety, supporting small businesses, and curbing “out of control” development, according to his old campaign site, a version of which can still be found on the Internet Archive.
Last Tuesday, Crescenta Valley councilmembers learned about the surveillance video and asked Kilpatrick for a statement.
By that time, however, he had retained an attorney, according to a letter detailing the council’s response obtained by the Los Angeles Times.
Crescenta Valley Town Council President Harry Leon said in the letter that he had called a special meeting about the issue, but claimed that before it could take place, Kilpatrick “expressed his desire to resign from the council.”
Kilpatrick tendered his resignation, which was accepted by the Council, and became effective that day.
“While we do not condone any of the behavior we observed on social media, we appreciate his 3 years of commitment and dedication to the community while serving on the council,” the letter from the Council said of Kilpatrick’s departure.
Kilpatrick’s attorney, John Duran, said that, prior to the alleged assault, two bar employees approached Kilpatrick and his boyfriend and grabbed him, asking if he had been at the bar.
“My client instinctively pushed back in self-defense,” Duran said in a statement to the Times. “It was reasonable for him to believe that they were about to possibly be gay-bashed” by the men, who allegedly were not in uniform and did not identify themselves before putting their hands on his clients.
Duran added that public urination is not a criminal offense, and battery is a misdemeanor offense, including “unlawful touching as exhibited by individual one who grabbed my client first.”
Kilpatrick does not appear to face any criminal charges at this time.
Some Instagram commenters took shots at Kilpatrick’s political stances, criticizing him for “vague” social media posts or past policy positions that suggest he holds more conservative political beliefs — although there is no evidence of outright support for one political party. Council elections in Crescenta Valley are nonpartisan, although the area is more conservative than nearby areas of greater Los Angeles.
“Not the blue lives matter sympathizer being messy in public,” wrote one.
“He is a Trumper, but the gays don’t care because he is hot,” wrote another.
Landon Cider, the winner of Season 3 of Dragula, quoted a descriptor in Kilpatrick’s bio on his Instagram account, writing, “‘100% American in the profile is such a [red flag emoji].”
That Instagram account, and a separate account that appears to have been created to document his work as councilmember, both appear to have been deleted.
Trey Cunningham, an internationally-ranked high hurdler who made the 110-meter finals at the U.S. Olympic trials last month, has come out publicly as gay.
The 25-year-old former Florida State University standout came out privately to family and friends at age 20, calling the process "the scariest thing I've ever done" in an exclusive interview with The New York Times.
For Cunningham, who grew up in rural Winfield, Alabama, raised by a conservative family, the idea of being gay was quite foreign. He says it took him a few years to accept his own sexuality, and the idea that his life would be different from how he thought it would be. His parents also initially pushed back on the news.
Robert Davis pleaded guilty earlier this week to the murder of gay journalist Josh Kruger. He has been sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison.
Prosecutors claim Davis entered the 39-year-old Kruger's home in Philadelphia's Point Breeze neighborhood last October and shot him seven times before fleeing.
Kruger managed to call for help before stumbling outside his house and collapsing on the sidewalk. He was taken by police to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
Earlier this year, Davis waived his right to a preliminary hearing and indicated that he intended to plead guilty to charges related to Kruger's death, as well as to charges of aggravated assault and illegal gun possession for an unrelated incident in which he fired a gun at someone at a SEPTA train platform last September. No one was injured in that incident.
President Joe Biden pardoned thousands of former U.S. service members who were convicted of violating a now-repealed military regulation that criminalized sodomy.
The law in question, Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, stated that any person who engaged in "unnatural carnal copulation" with another person, regardless of sex, was guilty of "sodomy," with any form of penetration being "sufficient to complete the offense."
Those found guilty of engaging in sodomy could be "punished as a court-martial may direct."
While the law technically outlawed military members from engaging in oral or anal intercourse with any partner, the law was primarily used to punish gay and bisexual men.
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