Photos: SMHayhurst
On Sunday evening a crowd of approximately 150 people gathered at Pier 45 to mourn the death of Jorge Steven Mercado, a 19-year-old gay Puerto Rican teen who was brutally murdered, dismembered and partially burned on the evening of November 13.
One of 20 such vigils held across the country, many attendants were of Puerto Rican descent, holding up posters and fliers professing solidarity and sporting images of the Boricua flag. Speakers included organizers Scott Anthony Evans, Ronnie Kroell, Karlo C. and Stephanie Jones, New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito, Councilman-elect Danny Domm, GLAAD President Jarrett Barrios, poet Emanuel Xavier, and designer Malan Breton,
The mood was emotional—many people were crying as the speakers professed their disappointment and feelings of loss. The brutal nature of the killing and the insensitive reaction on Puerto Rican television by police investigator Ángel Rodríguez Colón, who said (as translated into English), “These types of people, when they enter this lifestyle and go out into the streets know that this could happen.”
The details of the crime are slim: accused killer Martinez Matos picked up Mercado, who was dressed in drag, in the town of Caguas and drove him to the nearby of Cidra. Upon discovering Mercado was a man, he flew into a rage, killing and decapitating Mercado before burning his dismembered body.
“You have to remember, Jorge is our son, he is our child,” Barrios told the crowd on Sunday. Others nodded or spoke in agreement, “That’s right.”
Although Puerto Rico is no stranger to gay male lifestyle, statements like Colón’s demonstrate that attitudes that remain in Caribbean and Latino cultures towards masculinity and the archaic gender dichotomy many people subscribe to. The statement was offensive because it blames the victim, suggesting that violating the gender boundaries is an invitation to violence.
The vigil, which was followed by a memorial service at St. Luke in the Fields in Greenwich village, was as much a protest against violence and gender hegemony as a memorial for the all-too-young Mercado—taken from his adoring mother because he chose to express the difference he felt within him.
