Straight Talk

GoFundMe page created for man suffering with broken leg after trying to stop antigay preaching in West End

by Charlie Smith on August 24th, 2020 at 8:11 AM
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      A Vancouver man says he's in hospital with a broken leg after he confronted two antigay preachers in the West End.

      "I stood up to anti-gay evangelical bullies in the West End this evening, and they purposefully broke my leg for the trouble," Justin Morissette tweeted on August 22. "I don't know why I did this. It felt like the right thing to do and no one else would. I'm going to have metal plates in my leg for the rest of my life."

      Morissette, a Wrestle Central host on SportsNet 650 and who stated on Twitter that he isn't gay, added that his leg is "super fucked up". In other tweet, he stated that he's in "excruciating pain" and his knee is "incredibly mangled".

      "But the violent man who did this to me would have done it, or possibly worse, to someone else down the line had he not been arrested tonight," Morissette continued. "I have prevented harm to someone I will never know, and they won't know I did it either."

      The incident occurred around 7:45 p.m. on August 22 near the corner of Burnaby and Thurlow streets.

      In B.C., Crown counsel must approve charges after a report has been forwarded by police.

      There are two criteria for a criminal charge to be laid. There must be a substantial likelihood of conviction and it must be deemed to be in the public interest.

      Police asked preachers to move

      Morissette's brother Kevin has created a GoFundMe page to raise money for the injured man.

      "The location of their preaching was not unplanned given the historic LGBTQIA2s+ history of Vancouver’s west end," Kevin Morissette wrote. "2020 has brought with it the call to action for civilians to stand up and fight against intolerance and bigotry. Justin did exactly this by confronting this group of religious extremists who believed they had a right to spew hate speech." 

      Vancouver resident Dane B. McFadhen wrote on his Facebook page that he called police around 4 p.m. after observing a man "screaming into a microphone at passersby" at the corner of Davie Street and Beach Avenue.

      McFadhen mentioned that called 911.

      "Moments later a squad car screamed past me and a sizeable crowd and stopped," McFadhen wrote. "The man was told to move. People applauded."

      Another Vancouver resident, Alexis Sheridan, tweeted that West End residents have been calling the Vancouver Police Department all summer about an "aggressive anti-gay group".

      However, Sheridan claimed that nothing was ever done. 

      "This group scares and intimidates citizens in their own community," Sheridan declared.

      On June 11, West Enders confronted a group of antigay street preachers who had assembled at the intersection of Davie and Thurlow streets in the West End.

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