Berkeley Murder Suspect Demands to be Called ‘They,’ Not ‘He’

Online news media has spotlighted a controversy surrounding Pablo Gomez, Jr., a student LGBT activist at University of California, Berkeley, in recent weeks, after he was arrested in January 2017 for the murder of a local elementary teacher.

The Associated Press devoted a Sunday article to “the crime that police described as ‘very brutal and unusual’ in a city that reported just two homicides last year,” and how the homicide was “sucked up into the debate over gender identity when it was reported that Gomez preferred to be called ‘they’ rather than ‘he.'”

Gomez is also accused of assaulting another woman hours before the murder.

The press agency pointed out that “on the university campus, where the debate over nontraditional pronouns has simmered, some students said Gomez’s case is different.” They cited a member of College Republicans at Berkeley, Jonothan Chow, who contended that “you give away your right to make a demand like that when you are arrested for killing somebody.”

Prior to Gomez’s arrest, the College Republicans at the notoriously left-leaning school had a run-in with the undergraduate activist and his peers in September 2016. His group objected to the political club’s use of a cutout of then-candidate Donald Trump.

The AP noted that “victim Emile Inman, a 27-year-old native of France, was found in her home in January” 2017. They described her as a “popular elementary-school teacher.”

[image via screengrab]

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