Crime Charges In Scalding Of Gay Couple

Marquez Tolbert and Anthony Gooden

By Nathan James
Attorney General Loretta Lynch has directed the Justice Department to look into filing hate crime charges against a Georgia man who attacked a young gay couple with boiling water, severely burning both men, officials said this weekend.
The attack happened last month as Marquez Tolbert and Anthony Gooden, both 21, slept together an apartment belonging to Gooden’s mother, in Atlanta’s College Park section. Incensed that a gay couple was in the home, police say, Martin Blackwell, the mother’s boyfriend, hurled a pot of boiling water onto the couple, inflicting second and third-degree burns on both men.
The suspect allegedly shouted, “Get out of my house with all that gay!” at the victims while they screamed in pain, according to Atlanta detectives assigned to the case. Police quoted Blackwell as saying, “They’ll be all right. It was just a little hot water on them.” Blackwell was booked into the city jail on charges of aggravated battery, and held without bail.

Because Georgia does not include sexual orientation in its hate crimes statute, Lynch began a probe into the case, to see if Blackwell was eligible for hate crimes charges at the federal level.
Meanwhile, Tolbert and Gooden face months of painful recovery from burns to their faces, limbs, necks and backs. Both men spent nearly two weeks in Grady Memorial Hospital’s burn unit, with Tolbert initially on life support. He underwent skin graft surgery to repair his scorched back.

“I can’t think straight,” Tolbert said. “The pain and stinging are everywhere.” Doctors say it will take extensive treatment for the couple to recover–and it may never be complete.

“Third-degree burns involve complete destruction of the skin,” hospital officials said, “and even second-degree burns often produce permanent disfigurement”. Gooden says the psychological trauma is “almost unbearable. When [Blackwell attacked us] I couldn’t stop screaming”.

Kim Foster, Gooden’s mother, told WSB-TV she was shocked and horrified by her boyfriend’s alleged actions. ” I said, ‘That’s not your house. You need to mind your business.’ He said, ‘Well, they laying up there.’ I said, ‘That is not your business. [Anthony] don’t bother you. That boy don’t bother you. This is not your house,’” Foster said.
“When I got there and saw my child, I wanted to die,” Foster recounted. “He’s not human. He got hatred in his heart and God’s gonna deal with him.” Blackwell, who does not live with Foster, said he was “disgusted” by her son and his boyfriend, and told investigators they “had it coming”, prosecutors noted.
Gooden says he is struggling to come to terms with the attack, and turns to his faith to avoid meeting hate with hate. “It still hurt my family. It still hurt me. Thinking about it. I just feel like that was real hateful. You didn’t have to do that to nobody. You could have walked out the door. Could’ve walked down the street. Could have done anything,” Gooden observed.
“To pour hot water on us? That’s evil….Yeah I hate looking in the mirror. But it’s healing. It’s healing everyday now. Sometimes when I think about [it], I get angry. But I also know how to pray and ask God to release that anger and bring me happiness.”
Go Fund Me campaigns have been organized to help defray the couple’s medical bills.



The Justice department said in a statement that their investigation of the case is “ongoing at this time”.