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Disappointing: CCSU Student Fakes Anti-Gay Harassment For Attention
Sometimes a person does something stupid for stupid reasons, and this time is no exemption. The problem, of course, is that the actions of one can and do hurt many. Alexandra Pennell, a student at Central Connecticut State University, has been arrested for slipping notes under her own door that were intended to make it sound like she was the victim of a hate crime. She then reported the anti-gay notes to the police.
Pennell did tell the police that she wrote all of the notes after she was videotaped slipping one under her door and then reporting it to the police. She told the police, allegedly, that she did this in order to gain more attention from her roommate. The nineteen year old has, though, pled not guilty to charges of falsely reporting an incident, fabricating evidence and making false statements. She was arrested on 2 May, but the charges were not reported until this past Monday.
According to the arrest warrant, Pannell was caught on a hidden camera set up by the CCSU police to catch the perpetrator after the first round of notes were reported. The community gave a major outpouring of support to Pennell at the time that they were reported back in march, and hundreds of students turned out in rallies to support her. She reported that there were harassing notes left under her door and written on a dry-erase board on her door.
Pennell has been suspended from all colleges and universities in Connecticut for five years, and CCSU spokesman Mark McLaughlin is certain that they have the perpetrator and stated “We remain proud, however, of the campus community’s response to what we believed was an act of bias, and we reaffirm now what was said then: Acts of bias and hate will not be tolerated at CCSU.”
While understandable, and very human, the acts of Pennell can and will hurt the LGBT Community as a whole because they make it harder for real victims of harassment to be taken seriously in the future.
4 Responses to Disappointing: CCSU Student Fakes Anti-Gay Harassment For Attention
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Jane
July 10, 2012 at 8:40 am
In response to P. Smith:
Lexi was named because CCSU had an anti hate rally in response to the gdet crimes. She voluntarily got up, identifyed herself as the victim, and had since been doing interviews with various news stations. Her identity was not a secret because she wanted to be in the spot light.
P Smith
July 6, 2012 at 2:02 am
Here’s an interesting question:
Why was Pennell named publicly? Was it to make her a target for retaliation?
In 2010, a female student at George Washington University claimed she was the victim of anti-semitism. She was caught on hidden video cameras painting swastikas on her own door. She has never been named publicly.
Why does one student get named, and the other doesn’t? Because the retaliation a jewish student might face would be unacceptable and deemed a hate crime, but the retaliation a gay student might face is “okay”, that she “brought it on herself”?
Pennell did something stupid. That doesn’t mean she should be deliberately identified or put into a pillory.
Bridgette P. LaVictoire
July 6, 2012 at 10:08 am
Smith, I removed the video just because of the associated links. Incidentally, the incident happened in 2007, and the woman was named. She was freshman Sarah Marshak. She just wasn’t named initially.
Dan
July 6, 2012 at 12:54 am
Yup, that’s exactly right and many of us on the right side of this issue are continuing to document every FAKE hate crime the LGBT community does and we will make sure that people know and that the REAL HATERS get justice. You and I both know that if this was someone on our side, you’d be ripping them a big one and condemning them to hell for their actions. This lesbians is mentally ill, which is very clear, and what she did was not just STUPID, it was CRIMINAL. She should have the book thrown at her.