Murder of Mark Carson
On May 18, 2013, Mark Carson was fatally shot in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City by Elliot Morales. Morales was arrested shortly after the shooting and charged with second-degree murder with a hate crime designation. In March 2016, he was found guilty and in June was given a sentence of 40 years to life in prison. Carson was a 32-year-old openly gay African American man who was in Greenwich Village with a friend. On the night he was murdered, Morales was also in the neighborhood. Morales had consumed a significant amount of alcohol and engaged in a verbal altercation with the staff at a nearby restaurant that included the use of homophobic slurs and threatening to kill them with a handgun. After leaving the restaurant, he encountered Carson and directed homophobic slurs towards him and his friend. After a brief exchange between the three, Morales pulled out his handgun and shot Carson in the head, killing him instantly. Morales was arrested shortly thereafter. In the subsequent trial, in which Morales represented himself, the prosecution alleged that Morales had murdered Carson because of his appearance and because Morales believed him to be gay. Morales denied this, saying instead that he had acted in self-defense after he believed that Carson was pulling out a handgun. However, Carson was unarmed at the time of the encounter. Additionally, Morales claimed that he was not homophobic, in part because he himself was bisexual. However, he was ultimately found guilty of committing a hate crime, with the sentencing judge comparing the murder to the Pulse nightclub shooting. The killing drew widespread media attention, with multiple news sources pointing out that the shooting occurred a short distance from the Stonewall Inn. Prior to Morales's conviction, both New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly held a press conference to discuss the event, with both individuals calling it a hate crime. Additionally, a few days after his death, a rally was held in Greenwich Village to protest both Carson's death and a general uptick in anti-LGBTQ violence in the city.
Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Murder of Mark Carson (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).Murder of Mark Carson
West 8th Street, New York Manhattan
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Geographical coordinates (GPS)
| Latitude | Longitude |
|---|---|
| N 40.733611111111 ° | E -73.999444444444 ° |
Address
BaNeul Tattoo
West 8th Street 65
10011 New York, Manhattan
New York, United States
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