Gay Man Angry About Police Reponse To Attack

SAVANNAH, GEORGIA - Twenty-year old Travis McLain said he was beat up outside of the bathroom at the Liberty Street parking garage in downtown Savannah early Saturday morning. He said he did not provoke his attacker and believes he was targeted because of his sexuality.
"His first comments were to call me a faggot," said McLain.
A derogatory term he says he tried to overlook.
"I turned to face away from him to ignore the comments he was saying and didn't say anything to him and he came walking in and struck me in the face," McLain said.
He said he was left unconscious as his friend tried to lead police to the suspects--but he says their efforts were ignored.
"(My friend) saw the guy leaving the parking garage pointed him out to the police and police said they didn't have time for that--they didn't have time to go after him," said McLain.
McLain said he is outraged by the police response.
"They are here to protect the citizens of Savannah and they didn't protect them in any way," said McLain. "They didn't pursue who did it at all and they had the chance. (The suspect) was still in the garage and they pointed the car out and they said they didn't have time to go after them."
Now McLain said he is scared to walk around the city where he used to feel safe.
"The police didn't pursue it at all and that it makes me scared to walk around because if something does happen again the police really acted as if they don't care," said McLain.
After hearing of the attack Georgia Equality, a gay rights advocacy group, called for better police protection.
"The leadership that's currently there is not working," said Georgia Equality Executive Director Chuck Bowen. "It's resulted in a great deal of fear for the gays and lesbians of this city."
On Tuesday afternoon News 3 took the concerns of McLain and Georgia Equality to Interim Police Chief Willie Lovett. We asked Lovett if McLain's sexuality played a part in how police responded to the incident. Lovett replied, "I haven't heard anything from this group but I hear what you're telling me and I've heard some other comments and for that reason I have ordered an internal affairs investigation to determine if in fact the officer has done anything wrong."
Besides the way he said he was treated by police- Travis McLain also claimed there were many inaccuracies in the police report. For instance, the report said Travis is dark-skinned with brown eyes. McLain has blue eyes and light skin.
We also told Lovett that McLain said the report did not give an accurate account of what actually happened. Lovett replied, "The officer usually relies on victim to give the information. If the officer failed to do what he was supposed to do in terms of asking these questions then I will deal with that. I'm not going to automatically assume that's what happened here."
Lovett also said he won't make any predrawn conclusions until the investigation is over. He also has decided to let the officer stay on the job during the investigation.
from WSAV3