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Copyright
2000 The Columbus Dispatch
The Columbus Dispatch
January 26,2000, Wednesday
SECTION: NEWS, Pg. 5B
LENGTH: 777 words
HEADLINE: SURVIVOR SAYS FATAL
SHOOTING OF HIS PARTNER WAS HATE CRIME
BYLINE: Connie A. Higgins,
Dispatch Staff Reporter
BODY:
Scott Roberts sat yesterday
in his Columbus home, grieving for his partner and thinking about how
close he came to losing his life.
"If Bill wouldn't have started
the car, he (the shooter) would have shot me in the chest,'' Roberts said.
"Bill saved my life.''
Roberts was talking about Bill
Camelin, 38, who died Saturday at Grant Medical Center of a gunshot wound
in his back. Roberts, 43, is recuperating from a gunshot
wound in his knee.
The two men were shot shortly
after midnight Wednesday near Whittier Street and Parsons Avenue, Columbus
police said.
Roberts thinks that he and
his partner of six years were targeted because they're gay.
"Everybody who ever met Bill
fell in love with him,'' Roberts said. "He was vivacious and full of life.
He lived every minute to the fullest.''
Roberts, a graphic artist and
photographer, and Camelin, a carpenter, had lived together in Columbus
until this past December.
That's when Camelin moved home
to Chillicothe to help care for his parents; his father has cancer and
his mother has heart problems, Roberts said. But Camelin traveled
back to Columbus often.
Early Wednesday morning, they
had been playing pool at Remo's Bar, a gay tavern at 1409 S. High St.
Afterward, they drove north
on High Street. Camelin, who was driving, turned onto Whittier Street
and stopped at Parsons Avenue for a red light, Roberts said.
Two men in a metallic champagne-colored
Chevrolet Malibu pulled alongside them, Roberts said. He said the men
smiled and stared.
"I felt as though they were
making acknowledgment that we were a gay couple, and I felt they might
be also,'' he said.
When the light changed, the
men nodded their heads as if inviting Camelin and Roberts to follow. They
did, and the Malibu stopped on a side street. The passenger
in that car got out. Camelin pulled his car alongside, but when Roberts
rolled down his window, the other men didn't say anything.
"Within a split second, the
passenger appeared at my side and said, 'What do you want?,' '' Roberts
said.
Camelin and Roberts began to
worry that something was odd and decided to leave. Roberts said he remembers
only the five to seven bullets that shattered their rear
window as they drove away.
Roberts knew that they both
had been shot and that Camelin was more seriously wounded.
"I asked him, 'Can you drive?'
And he gave this sad look and blood gushed out his face,'' Roberts said.
"When he tried to respond, blood came out of his mouth.''
He laid Camelin's head back
on the seat and drove the car from the passenger's seat for three or four
blocks. He then got out and ran around the car to the driver's side.
"There were people around,''
he said. "I started screaming for help, but no one would help us.''
Roberts drove on to Columbus
Community Hospital. They both were transferred to Grant Medical Center
later.
Columbus police describe the
suspects as a light-skinned black man with a shaved head and a darker
black man with light facial hair and corn rows who is 25-30 years
old and about 5 feet, 8 inches tall.
Sgt. Earl Smith, spokesman
for the division, said the incident isn't being investigated as a hate
crime.
"Our first goal is to help
solve what now is considered a homicide and find the suspects,'' Smith
said. "The motivation is secondary to locating them and identifying
them.''
Those with gay-rights organizations
think that Camelin and Roberts were victims of a hate crime, but note
that there aren't laws in Ohio that categorize a slaying that
way.
Ohio's hate-crime law doesn't
include sexual orientation and Columbus' hate- crime ordinance covers
only misdemeanors, said Jeff Redfield, executive director of
Stonewall Columbus.
"It sounds like the person
shot them because they were gay,'' he said. " There wasn't anything done
to reflect there was any kind of threat.''
Gloria McCauley, executive
director of the Buckeye Region Anti-Violence Organization, which that
works specifically on issues of violence against those in the lesbian,
gay, bisexual and transgender community, said there were about 200 crimes
the organization would consider hate crimes reported in central Ohio in
1998, the year of the
most recent figures.
Camelin is survived by a 17-year-
old son, Jan-Michael Chaney; his parents, Carl and Marian Kellough Camelin;
three sisters; and a grandmother. A William
Camelin Reward Fund has been
set up at Bank One, 833 S. High St.
Visitation hours will be 6-8
p.m. today at Hallers Funeral Home in Chillicothe. A memorial service
will follow at 8 p.m.
Anyone with information about
the shooting is asked to call police at 614- 645-4730.
GRAPHIC: Phot, Bill Cameli
LOAD-DATE: January 27, 2000
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