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June 20, 2024 Edition of the Bay Area Reporter

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Vol. 54 • No. 25 • June 20-26, 2024

Judge says gay Oakland murder case can move forward

SF Pride hears it from both sides in Israel-Hamas conflict

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by John Ferrannini

estimony from a homicide detective and DNA expert in the preliminary hearing of a UC Berkeley employee charged in the killing of a gay Black man in Oakland last year was compelling Oakland LGBTQ center enough for an Al- Curtis Marsh was ameda County judge killed in March to rule the case can 2023. move forward to trial. Superior Court Judge Rhonda Burgess ruled June 18 that the prosecution’s evidence was compelling enough after two days of hearing from witnesses for the prosecution in Department 11 of the Rene C. Davidson Alameda County Courthouse near Oakland’s Lake Merritt. The defendant, Sweven Waterman, 39, of Oakland, will have the opportunity to enter a plea to the homicide charges again July 3 (he had already pleaded not guilty last year). He is still being held in custody at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin. Prosecutors accuse Waterman of killing Curtis Marsh, 53, also of Oakland. Marsh, who was also known as drag artist Touri Monroe, was a hair stylist and a Miss Gay Oakland emeritus who used to sing with the Oakland Gay Men’s Chorus. Originally from Iowa, friends described him as fun, helpful, and active in his church. (Waterman is on leave from his UC job.) Waterman’s defense attorney David Briggs has told the B.A.R. in past reports that Waterman did not know Marsh, as far as he knew. Neither side is contesting that Marsh was killed at his apartment on Vernon Street in the Adams Point neighborhood just before 8 a.m. March 4, 2023. Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Jake O’Malley conceded that “we may never know what events transpired in that apartment.” Nevertheless, he alleges that “for the purposes of today … the defendant was in that apartment when Curtis was killed, and his DNA is on the weapon.”

Testimony

Three people testified at the preliminary hearing, two on June 17 and one on June 18. All were called by the prosecution. The first to testify was Ariel Butler, one of the Oakland police officers who responded to Marsh’s home the morning of March 4. The Oakland Fire Department was on the scene already, he said. (Neighbors had told KTVU-TV last year that the perpetrator set a fire and left the front door and gate open when running away.) Butler said he’d spoken to a neighbor who “said there’d been multiple domestic violence incidents” in the past at the address. (Hearsay evidence is allowed at preliminary hearings.) See page 2 >>

by John Ferrannini

trong feelings on both sides of the IsraelHamas war have landed the San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration Committee in the middle, seemingly not pleasing anyone. The dueling positions come as San Francisco prepares to celebrate LGBTQ Pride June 29-30. The Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area criticized SF Pride in an email blast earlier this month, critiquing a “poorly worded statement” that the organization first published to Instagram. A proPalestinian group has also railed against SF Pride. This year’s Pride parade is scheduled for Sunday, June 30, at 10:30 a.m., where thousands are scheduled to march up Market Street from Beale Street in commemoration of the 55th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, which is widely credited with launching the modern LGBTQ rights movement in the United States. The parade this year is taking place against the backdrop of Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip, which started after Hamas, which governs the strip, killed 1,200 people last October 7 in the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Hamas since then has been holding Israelis hostage in Gaza. Israel responded with an extensive bombing campaign in Gaza, and a ground invasion, which has led to the deaths of over 37,000 Palestinians, ac-

Rick Gerharter

Activists opposing the Israeli occupation of Palestine marched in the 2009 San Francisco LGBT Pride parade.

cording to health authorities, Reuters reports . The U.S. provides billions of dollars in military aid to Israel annually. The Biden administration has faced pressure from some Democrats and protesters to cut off that aid, or make it conditional on a ceasefire. Meanwhile, the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry determined both the Israeli government and Hamas

have committed war crimes, and the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for the leaders of both Israel and Hamas. Biden denounced the ICC warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “outrageous.” (This is separate from South Africa’s case in the International Court of Justice alleging that Israel is committing a genocide in the Gaza Strip.) See page 12 >>

5th annual People’s March is ready to rumble in SF by Eric Burkett

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fter four years of providing an alternative event to San Francisco’s Pride’s massive annual parade and celebration, the fifth annual People’s March will take place one week earlier on Sunday, June 23, ahead of SF Pride’s June 30 event. The pre-march rally will begin at 11 a.m. at the corner of Polk and Washington streets in the Polk Gulch neighborhood, with the parade following immediately after, marching south on Polk Street to Sutter Street. Once there, celebrants can enjoy a music festival from 12:30 to 4 p.m., followed by an inaugural drag contest with cash prizes from 4 to 7 at Music City, 1353 Bush Street. The lineup for the music festival has not yet been announced. Founded in 2020 in the wake of national protests following the murder by police of Black Minnesotan George Floyd, the first People’s March was, for many, a replacement for the annual San Francisco Pride parade. The in-person event that year had been canceled – replaced with virtual offerings – because of the COVID pandemic. The People’s March also was seen by many as a return to Pride’s roots in protest. The march was planned to follow the route of that first “gay-in” in 1970, which later grew to become the San Francisco Pride parade.

Gooch

Alex U. Inn, left, and Juanita MORE! led the 2023 People’s March.

Organized by Juanita MORE! and Alex U. Inn as a more activist-focused event than its larger counterpart, the People’s March had been a longtime dream, Inn told the Bay Area Reporter that first year. A former board member of the San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration Committee, Inn had been critical of what they felt was the

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more assimilationist direction that the parade had taken. The move this year to the earlier time slot will help participants already facing a packed Pride schedule, said MORE! See page 13 >>


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