2

Bloody Massacre At Gay Birthday Party Leaves 18 Dead

Gunmen burst into a birthday party organized through Facebook by a gay group in Mexico and opened fire, slaughtering at 18 people and injuring 17 early Sunday, police say. Bodies were found at the blood-stained party hall where the attack took place, including 12 males and five females, and around a dozen injured. Mexican authorities were quick to dismiss hate crime as a motive, saying instead that it was likely part of the ongoing drug cartel violence. The party was being held in the Italia Inn in Torreon, where guests were eating, drinking and dancing to live music. Most of the guest appeared to be in their 20s and 30s, authorities said. The gunmen rolled up in several vehicles, rushed into the party, blocks exits, and began shooting dozens of rounds. Police said they found more than 120 spent shells shot from high-velocity assault rifles. Torreon is in the northern state of Coahuila, which borders Texas. At least three major drug cartels are fighting for control in Coahuila, which is a key smuggling location into the U.S.

ASSOCIATED PRESS - The gunmen did not say a word as they jumped from their cars and stormed the private party. They simply opened fire. When they were done, 18 people were killed. Sunday's massacre in the city of Torreon was ghastly, but no longer unprecedented in northern Mexico, a region that is slammed day after day by gruesome slayings that authorities attribute to an increasingly brutal battle between drug gangs feuding over territory. Investigators had no suspects or information on a possible motive in the attack, but Coahuila, where Torreon is located, is among several northern Mexican states that have seen a spike in drug-related violence as the Gulf cartel and its former enforcers, the Zetas, fight for control of drug-trafficking routes. The attack on the party came just three days after a car bomb killed several people in the northern city of Ciudad Juarez — and a little more than a month after assailants raided a drug-rehab center in the northern city of Chihuahua, killing 19 people in cold blood. Photos of the aftermath showed the patio of the house in Torreon streaked with bloodstains and white plastic chairs overturned beneath a party tent decorated with pictures of snowmen. The Coahuila state Attorney General's Office said in a statement Monday that the death toll rose to 18 overnight after one of the wounded died. There were 12 male and six female victims; among them were four teenagers, the youngest a 17-year-old boy. Seventeen were wounded. The assailants arrived in a convoy of vehicles. Police found more than 120 bullet casings at the scene, most of them from .223-caliber weapons. Torreon is no stranger to violence. In May, gunmen killed eight people at a bar in the city, while later that month a television station and the offices of a local newspaper came under fire. A pregnant woman was wounded in the attack on the offices of Noticias de El Sol de la Laguna. Across northern Mexico, there have been increasing reports of mass shootings at parties, bars and rehab clinics. In January, gunmen barged into a private party in the border city of Ciudad Juarez and killed 15, many of them high school or university students. Relatives say that attack was a case of mistaken identity, while state officials claim someone at the party was targeted, although they have not said who it was. On Thursday, drug-gang members set off their first successful car bomb. They lured federal police and paramedics to an intersection in Ciudad Juarez by calling in a false report of a wounded police officer, and when the authorities were in place at the scene, they detonated the explosive. Three people were killed, including a federal officer and a private doctor who had rushed to help. The FBI has sent a small team to the crime scene to offer technical assistance to the Mexican investigators, FBI spokeswoman Andrea Simmons said. She did not immediately offer more details. Mexican investigators have not said what type of explosive was used. Officials say 24,800 people have been killed in drug-gang violence since President Felipe Calderon declared war on the cartels in December 2006, deploying soldiers and federal police to fight traffickers. On Saturday, four municipal police officers were ambushed and killed in the Pacific coast resort city of Acapulco, state police said. The government attributes much of the rise in violence to infighting among drug gangs, whose leadership has been splintered after the arrest of kingpins. Federal police said in a statement Sunday they have arrested 1,626 people suspected of belonging to the command structures of Mexico's drug gangs since Calderon launched his offensive. They said 622 of the detainees belong to the Gulf cartel and 304 to the Sinaloa cartel. On Sunday, a judge formally charged an alleged leader of the Beltran Leyva cartel, Jose Gerardo Alvarez, with organized crime. Alvarez, who had a $2 million U.S. bounty on his head, was captured in April in a wealthy neighborhood on the outskirts of Mexico City. The federal government has steadily wiped out the leadership of the once-powerful Beltran Leyva cartel. In December, cartel boss Arturo Beltran Leyva was killed in a gunbattle. Two of his brothers are behind bars. A fourth brother, Hector Beltran Leyva, remains at large and is believed to be battling for control of the cartel against Edgar Valdez Villareal, a U.S.-born suspect known as "La Barbie." Mexican authorities say Alvarez partnered with Valdez in his quest for control of the gang.

5

Enter the Drone - New Drug Hits The Gay Party Circuit

This month's edition of Details magazine describes it as meow meow, sunshine, drone, and bubble, the newest designer dust combines the rush of coke with the sensory bliss of Ecstasy.

WTF is this shit?

It’s the credit crunch don't you know this already?  It’s ok to be a scumbag, fashionable to shred your tights, massacre your hair and roll around on the floor at hardcore shows even if you couldn’t give a shit about music.

Down with sun-kissed tans, cocaine, up with bad tattoos.

Economy drug experimentation is reaching a new socially acceptable high.

Enter the Drone… Mephedrone… the new semi-legal quasi coke/mdma drug that ‘all the gay folks were onto months ago’, rearing its head at a bar near you soon.  So –before some dickhead offers you this shit at a party, or even worse you buy some coke that’s suspiciously fluffy and sore on the nose check out the highs and lows of a night out on the Drone as described by our resident club kid/10 time rehab reject/former employee/professional social guinea pig:

UP

• It’s cheaper then cocaine, mdma, booze, poppers, ketamin etc etc.  In fact the only thing that’s possibly cheaper then it is speed.  And Super.  Both of which are shit.  (Super’s great actually). • You don't really want to eat for a good while after taking it's good for fashion week/wearing spandex or fitting into clothes from the boys department of the Goodwill Store. • You can easily buy it online.  No need for cryptic texting, weird phone calls and meetings with strange men called Rocky. • It does make you happy, awake, warm and fuzzy, a bit like a cokey, mellow mdma hug.  You can stay out with douche bags, being a douche bag all night long yourself. • Drooooooonnnnnnnnne – is a great word to say when your fucked/hung over. • It could destroy the coke economy and make coke cheaper.

DOWN

• Snorting it feels similar to jumping into a swimming pool whilst inhaling through your nostrils. It hurts/causes possible mild brain bleed. • It’s legal which instantly makes it less fun. Also you know that the online guy you bought it off is probably sitting at home in front of his computer wearing a novelty festival hat and yellow sunglasses listening to the Nine Inch Nails "remix" on his portable DVD player. • People talk about it a lot on virtual forums.- Drone makes you chronically compelled to give it out to everyone around you whilst declaring it’s ‘the best drug in the world’.  This may make you look like an asshole / get you thrown out of clubs/temporarily arrested. • There have been reports of nasty side effects such as extreme insomnia, asphyxiation, bits-of-mouth-falling-off syndrome, paranoia, anxiety-ridden comedowns. • It could destroy the coke economy and make the credit crunch worse.

4-Methylmethcathinone is unscheduled in the United States but has been made illegal in North Dakota. Those selling the drug for human consumption may however, be prosecuted under the Federal Analog Act due to its similarity to Methcathinone.

0

Guns, Ammo, Dungeon, "Sex-Oriented Devices," and Drugs, Drugs, and More Drugs

What could possibly go wrong? Mix Guns,Drugs,Kinky Sex and Play Russian Roulette?

Lavallee-Davidson and another man, James Pombriant of Auburn, arrived at Wilson's home for a sex party on the evening of April 17, 2009. Pombriant brought GBL, a chemical compound that is used as a recreational drug when mixed with a sugared drink. Wilson had several aerosol canisters of an inhalant that is also used to get high. The party was held in Wilson's basement. There was a small room that had been outfitted as a "dungeon," with sex toys, pornographic videos, a computer and sexually oriented devices.Lavallee-Davidson, an avid firearms enthusiast, brought three guns and ammunition. The men, all openly gay and HIV-positive, incorporated two of the guns — a .44-caliber revolver and a Mossberg shotgun — into their sex play. Pombriant testified that the men also handled the ammunition. The men partied between 8:30 p.m. and 5:30 a.m., each using varying amounts of the drugs.... Lavallee-Davidson said the party was winding down when Wilson asked him to engage in a type of Russian roulette, by holding the revolver to his head and pulling the trigger. Lavallee-Davidson claimed that he checked the gun to make sure that it was unloaded, then left the basement to use the bathroom. When he returned, he picked up the gun. "I picked it up and pointed it at his head and it clicked and he said something like, do it again. I did, and it went off," Lavallee-Davidson told detectives. "As soon as it went off, I was just totally freaked out."

A jury rightly found Lavallee-Davidson guilty of manslaughter yesterday. Shortly before the accident—I believe it was most likely an accident, but one that wouldn't have happened but for the criminal stupidity (and diminished capacity) of all involved—Lavallee-Davidson testified at a hearing in favor of legalizing gay marriage in Maine. This delights anti-gay activists, of course, and it certainly conflicts with the just-like-you image promoted by marriage equality activists. So for the record: some straight people are kinky—even some straight Christians are kinky—and some straight married kinky people have done terrible things in their own dungeons and straight people—kinky or not—can still get legally married and sometimes legally married kinky straight people do criminally stupid things. ?source Slog/Topix

0

True Crime Story - 'Miss Tina Regrets' By Rick Reed, 'The Stephen King of Gay Horror'

By 'The Stephen King of Gay Horror' - Rick Reed: I Google the terms ‘gay crime’ and come up with tons of hits about hate crimes. But this month I wanted to write about a kind of crime (that can be defined legally and ethically) that has taken a unique hold on the gay community, the gay male community in particular. That crime goes by many names, the most proper of which is crystal methamphetamine. It’s also called “Tina”, giving it a girlish, kinda friendly ring. Don’t let the nickname fool you, though, this “Tina” is a real bitch. And the crime I’m talking about here is her allure and the toll it's taking on the gay community. I am not the first person to suggest that the rise in meth use (reported in almost all states) is directly linked to a rise in HIV-infection. When you’re flying with Tina, precautions go out the window and it’s easy to see the correlation. I know, I’ve had my share of experience in the past with this corrosive and not easily shaken drug. Tina has not scarred my life so much, but she has scarred the lives of those around me. I once was with a gorgeous young twenty-something meth head trick who tearfully told me how he thought his neighbors were piping voices into his apartment to drive him crazy (paranoia is a common side-effect of the drug). And I also had a good friend commit suicide, or at least I think it was suicide. He had tried on more occasions than I can count to get away from the drug, telling me how he no longer truly derived any pleasure from it, but was simply chasing those initial highs. He worried about the people he hooked up with online, people he would have once found so unsavory he would have had nothing to do with them, and yet now found himself having sex with them to share in their party favors. My friend, who shall remain nameless, OD’d one night on Tina. He was alone in his apartment. He was discovered nude, with his computer open to a popular online hookup site. A bareback porn video played on his DVD. This is the final memory he left for family and friends and despite the indignity of it, I have always wondered if his death was on purpose. He had confided in me that he wanted to quit, but that he didn’t think he could afford rehab. He was twenty-six years old. When he died—of cardiac arrest—he was six foot, two inches tall and weighed 145 pounds. He had been a gorgeous young man. It will always haunt me if he was chasing hard after yet another high or if he was simply escaping. To cope with my grief at watching a vibrant, smart, funny, and handsome young man fall so far in a little over the course of a year, I composed a suicide note from him, based on our conversations:

It’s Saturday night, and Miss Tina is over again. She’s become a regular fixture around my place. Once upon a time, she was everything I ever wanted in a friend. She was fun, boys and girls! She was cheap. She was wicked. She could keep me up all night. But Miss Tina just isn’t much fun anymore. She’s like that little devil that sits on your shoulder and talks you into doing things you should never do, not when you’re in your right mind. But Miss Tina is an expert at taking you out of your right mind. She likes to get you all excited, heart racing, pulse pounding, so that all you can think about is pleasure. Miss Tina is, or at least she once was, the ultimate hedonist. But as I said, she’s not much fun anymore. She’s reneged on the promise she initially gave me when we first became friends. Back then, it was “let the good times roll!” and she kept me going…there was no such thing as too much sex, there was no such thing as not knowing someone well enough, there was no such thing as being discriminating…a man was a man was a man…as long as he had a hard dick. Tina would whisper: “go for it.” What did she care? When the consequences came around, clamoring to be paid, Miss Tina was out to lunch, or would have been, if the railish thing ever believed in eating. No, Miss Tina wasn’t around for the empty pockets, empty checkbook, the diagnoses of illnesses that were embarrassing or horrifying. But in spite of her perfidy, I always invited her back into my life. She had a way of making me miss her. Even though she was a bitch who betrayed me. With Miss Tina, you learned the lesson of betrayal early on, but she was always too charming and you’d always wind up forgiving her. Because you remembered the good times. And Miss Tina always held out the promise that they would be back. Those good times. Those hot, sweaty times when sex could last for twelve, fourteen hours, sometimes days. When you felt so up you could do anything… Except Miss Tina still hangs around and the good times seem to have taken a powder. Now she just makes me feel sick. Now it’s too much trouble to try to find partner or partners to share in the joy she used to bring. It’s easier to pop in a porno and hope that some of the old euphoria will return. It has to come back. Miss Tina used to really deliver. I’ll keep trying her until she comes back. We had such fun!

Story By: Rick R. Reed is the award-winning author of eleven novels and has been referred to as "the Stephen King of gay horror." Visit his website here and his blog here.

1

Party N Play Pastor Ted Haggard Reopens For Business With A New Church

Ted Arthur Haggard, the former pastor who ran afoul of his Denver congregation after admitting to a three-year pay-for-sex affair with male prostitute Mike Jones, will begin leading a prayer meeting in his Colorado Springs home, The Colorado Springs Gazette reported. Haggard told the paper it would be correct to call it a church. Haggard's comeback began in January with an image makeover that included an HBO documentary titled The Trials of Ted Haggard. The movie's premiere was preceded by appearances on the Oprah Winfrey Show, with wife and children in tow, and CNN's Larry King Live. During those appearances, Haggard attempted to paint himself as the victim, telling Larry King: “I think I'm still deeply wounded and scared and somewhat confused.” He also returned to Colorado Springs after years in exile. Immediately after Jones revealed their 3-year sexual association in 2006, Haggard denied being gay, saying only that he had committed “sexual immorality.” In seclusion, he underwent intensive counseling, he said. One of the four ministers who oversaw that therapy, Tim Ralph, pronounced Haggard “cured” on February 6, 2007. He said Haggard “is completely heterosexual.” In January, New Life Church in Colorado Springs, the church Haggard founded and grew into a $50 million megachurch and which ultimately asked him to leave, released details about a young male church volunteer who claims he had a sexual relationship with Haggard. Brady Boyd, who succeeded Haggard at New Life, told the Associated Press that a young man, later identified as Grant Hass, who volunteered at the church disclosed to church officials in 2006 that he had been involved with Haggard sexually for several years. Boyd said the church reached a legal settlement with the man to remain silent in exchange for payment of college tuition and counseling services. “It wasn't at all a settlement to make him be quiet or not tell his story,” Boyd told the Associated Press. “Our desire was to help him. Here was a young man who wanted to get on with his life. We considered it more compassionate assistance – certainly not hush money. I know that's what everyone will want to say because that's the most salacious thing to say, but that's not at all what it was.” On November 12, Haggard will lead his first prayer meeting since leaving New Life. It begins at 7PM in his home at 1865 Old Ranch Road. Story from: On Top Magazine, http://www.ontopmag.com

0

Convicted: Bringing Drugs to Killer For Gay Sex Party

A former Saint Joseph’s University administrator was convicted Tuesday of all charges for bringing crystal meth and a date-rape drug into the home of convicted killer William Smiths on the night a 23-year-old intern was murdered nearly three years ago. Judge James F. Nilon Jr. rendered the verdicts Tuesday after hearing a full day of testimony in the non-jury trial of Fen Bruce Covington, 59, a former administrator at Saint Joseph’s University. Now living in State College, Covington was charged with delivering crystal methamphetamine and gamma hydroxybutyric acid, or GHB, and drug paraphernalia to Smithson’s Tanguy Road house where the body of Jason Shephard was found Sept. 21, 2006. He also was charged with lying to authorities. Investigators have said there is no evidence liking Covington to Shephard’s murder. Covington, according to the prosecution, went to Smithson’s home the night of Sept. 18, 2006, to get a group of men together for a sex party. He brought with him a duffle bag containing drugs and sex toys.

“He is there to have a party with other guys, to distribute these drugs,” said Assistant District Attorney Thomas Laurie. “He’s there to bring the drugs ... so he stays in good terms with these fellows.”

Pennsylvania State Trooper Detective Joseph R. McCunney, a member of Troop K’s Criminal Investigation Unit, was the main prosecution witness. McCunney testified that Covington was interviewed several days after Shephard’s body was discovered, when his name was found on Smithson’s cell phone. Covington initially spoke to investigators without the interview being recorded. Also known to use the name Bruce Chapman, Covington told investigators he went to Smithson’s home the night of Sept. 18 and that he and Smithson watched pornography and talked, McCunney testified.

“While in the basement, both he and Smithson did crystal meth,” McCunney said on the witness stand.

Covington told investigators he fell asleep at some point. When he woke up, he found his duffle bag open and some of the GHB was gone.

“He said he had no idea where it went,” McCunney testified.

The trooper also testified that when the investigators began to record the interview on a computer, Covington refused to answer certain questions, and “his story changed.” McCunney testified that four syringes were found at Smithson’s house shortly after Shephard’s body was discovered. DNA samples obtained from two of the syringes matched Smithson’s blood, one matched Covington’s and in the fourth there was no DNA detected. Investigators also allegedly found a glass vial containing GHB in Smithson’s home. However, defense attorney Steven Leach said there was no evidence to indicate the quantity of drugs Covington is alleged to have brought into the house. According to the testimony, only residual amounts of the drugs were found in the home.

“This is not a residence immune from drug activity,” Leach told the judge. “There were 120 other (drug-related) items confiscated in this house, all up and down all three floors.”

Arguing that the evidence did not support the drug-delivery charge, Leach likened the matter to a group of college students sitting around a dorm room passing around a joint. He maintained that all of the evidence presented by the commonwealth could only amount to simple possession. He also argued there was no evidence Smithson or Shephard used any of the drugs his client brought to the house. Covington is currently serving three years probation after pleading guilty to misdemeanor charges of possession of methamphetamine and possession of drug paraphernalia in connection with a February 2008 incident at his former home in Montgomery County. Convicted of first-degree murder, Smithson is serving life behind bars for the attempted rape, drugging and strangulation death of Shephard, an intern for a South Dakota-based electronic sign company. His attorneys recently filed an appeal in state Superior Court seeking to overturn his conviction.

0

Memphis Gay Club Closed In Police Raid

An early Sunday morning raid at Backstreet Memphis lead to the temporary closure of the city's largest gay dance club and the arrest of owner Shane Trice. Undercover Memphis Police officers say they witnessed illegal drug sales, illegal alcohol sales, and gambling inside the club on at least six occasions. In July, an undercover officer purchased drugs and witnessed minors drinking alcohol. The nuisance closure complaint also alleges that officers witnessed sex acts taking place in the Dark Room, an empty, unlit room located in the hallway behind the main bar area. Trice was arrested and charged with aggravated gambling promotion, storage of liquor for sale, possession of gambling device, and unlawful sale of alcohol. Three others were issued citations for selling alcohol after permitted hours. Trice is in criminal court Thursday morning again, and he's set to appear in Environmental Court regarding the nuisance closure on Friday.

Backstreet's website contains this lengthy statement denying any wrongdoing:

"Backstreet Memphis and its entire staff including the owner would like to say thank you to all of the customers who were at the club this weekend. Backstreet Memphis has over 26,000 members that come there on a regular basis. The MPD has made our nightclub out to be something that it is not. Anyone that goes there knows we are most likely the most compliant bar in this city with minors, gambling and such.

Club Owner Shane Trice

We are the only nightclub that verifies every ID with all 50 states before entering. Backstreet has never had a gambling device of any kind but has been accused of having them. Backstreet had mega touch machines made by merit. These machines are in no way designed for gambling and are in almost every bar and restaurant in Memphis. The owner was arrested and a Memphis police officer said he was paid out on a machine that is simply not capable of doing such. (There is absolutely no way the machine the officer is talking about would pay money to anyone).  Backstreet has also been accused of promoting sex at the nightclub, which is a crazy accusation. We hope that all of the thousands of you are just as apalled as we are with such accusations about the largest dance club in Memphis TN. Backstreet opened in 1995 and has never been through such as we have with the person who made these accusations. We had over 300 people searched, checked for warrants and valid ids this weekend. Not one minor was found nor anyone found without an id in our nightclub. How many bars would this happen in?"

To read the whole statement, click here

0

Adam Goldstein (DJ AM) R.I.P.

DJ AM - the celebrity disc jockey known for dating starlets and surviving a horrific plane crash - has been found dead in an apparent drugs overdose in New York. Cops found prescription drug bottles inside DJ AM's residence at 210 Lafayette Street after the 36-year-old's lifeless body spotted face-down in his bed at around 5:23 pm by a friend, who was concerned he hadn't heard from the performer in several days, sources said. Emergency medical workers responding to a 911 call from the friend declared DJ AM dead at the scene, the Daily Telegraph reports. No foul play is suspected. DJ AM, whose real name is Adam Goldstein, had twittered recently that he had finished wrapping up an MTV reality show about drug addiction. Prescription drugs and a crack pipe were found at the scene. Bottles of pills were found in both the bedroom and the kitchen. He was wearing sweatpants and no shirt. Friends of the disc jockey gathered outside his apartment tonight, hugging each other. They declined to speak with reporters. The Philadelphia native, whose real name was Adam Michael Goldstein, was a former member of the band Crazy Town, which scored the smash rap-rock hit "Butterfly" in 2001. His work behind turntables in hotspots around the world paid him up to $25,000 or more per night - helping fund what became a collection of more than 1000 sneakers. DJ AM had high-profile romances with Nicole Richie, to whom he was once engaged, as well as with actress Mandy Moore. Last September 19, DJ AM and former Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker were badly burned in the crash of a private plane in South Carolina that killed four other people on-board. The plane crashed as it headed down the runway during takeoff. Barker's ex-wife, Playmate Shanna Moakler, responded to news of DJ AM's death on Twitter, writing, "My deepest condolences for DJ AM, you were a great artist and will be severely missed. My thoughts and Prayers to his family and friends." "We all love him and miss him," said DJ AM's close friend, new York nightclub entrepreneur Mike Satsky. Samathan Ronson, another celebrity DJ, tweeted to a friend, "Waiting for someone to say this isn't true." Guitar virtuoso John Mayer tweeted, "We're supposed to lose our friends to time, at an age when we're ready to agree to the terms of having lived a long life. Not now." Lindsay Lohan wrote, "i can't believe this ... I'm in shock. why? why? r.i.p. adam." In his own last post on Twitter, dated Tuesday, DJ AM quoted a Grandmaster Flash song: "New York, New York. Big city of dreams, but everything in New York ain't always what it seems." He was scheduled to have deejayed at Dusk in Atlantic City on Tuesday and then tonight at Rain in Las Vegas. In a 2007 interview with the New York Times, DJ AM admitted to having begun seriously abusing crack cocaine in his early 20s. But he said he had been sober for the past nine years and had even recently given up smoking. "All that's left is caffeine," he told the paper.  

0

PnP Police Chief Busted

This week the police chief from the city of Zofingen, Switzerland was arrested and charged with possession of narcotics and the sell of illegal drugs, he confessed during interrogation. Mathias M. (surnames nor photos are released in media until found guilty in most European countries here is the news article and photo. He held prestigious responsibilities of security and law enforcement including recently the high profile visits of dignitaries to Davos, Switzerland for the G8 Economic summit which included President Obama among the guests entourages. The thirty-six year old police chief allegedly had a dark side that included the growing underground Swiss drug scene. He is accused of distributing Crystal Meth, Tamphetamin, and Ketamin. Police and investigators searching his home this week discovered these and other items. According to Swiss news reports Mathias is currently incarcerated however seperated from the general population so as not to compromise the ongoing investigations. His online profile is Mathis, but at post time the profile has been closed.

0

Do not know they have HIV!

A first-of-its-kind study looking at HIV infection rates found that half of gay men in Chicago who have HIV did not know they were infected, and two-thirds of infected black men were unaware. In addition, infection rates for black men were more than twice the rates for whites and Hispanics. The results of the Chicago Department of Public Health survey are sobering, officials say, but not unexpected. "It's a terrible thing, but it is not surprising," says Jim Pickett, director of advocacy for the AIDS Foundation of Chicago. The statistics prove what some organizations, including the city, have been seeing for several years: That gay black men are among the fastest growing groups to test HIV-positive. The Chicago study found that more than 17 percent of gay men in Chicago have HIV; 39 percent did not get tested in the last year because they were worried about the result. Almost 600 gay men from across the city were tested for HIV/AIDS and interviewed about their lifestyles, including questions about drug use and number of partners. Ninety-one of the subjects tested positive for the virus. Thirty percent of gay black men in Chicago tested positive, the study showed, while Hispanics and white men had rates of 12 percent and 11.3 percent, respectively. A quarter of blacks aged 18-24 tested positive. More than 37 percent of blacks aged 25-34 - the highest of any age group - tested positive. The numbers are similar to national figures.

"What we think we're seeing here is the shifting sands of two epidemics," says Nik Prachand, an epidemiologist with the city of Chicago's STI/HIV/AIDS division. "What we're seeing right now is a new surge in (HIV cases) with black (gay men)."

Prachand says anecdotal data has backed up the information the city collected between August and December last year. He said it is important to understand that the prevalence of HIV in black men can be tied to the elevated rates in the black community.

"It's not that black (gay men) are exhibiting higher risk behaviors in either sex or drug use," he says, pointing to data showing them to engage in less risky behavior than whites or Hispanics. "It's sort of a network effect. When your overall community prevalence is higher, you're going to see elevated rates within subgroups."

Pickett says the study points to a need for an overhaul of how gay men approach health.

"When you focus on one specific thing, it doesn't reflect all the issues," including mental and physical health, depression and substance abuse, he says. More than 40 percent of those surveyed admitted illicit drug use, and whites were more likely to do drugs than any segment.

"We need to incorporate HIV into a broader or more holistic framework (covering) gay men's health needs from top to toe," Pickett says.

That's the city's take, too, says Prachand.

"I think it's important that our prevention points towards healing the whole community. It's an issue of being more holistic about HIV," he says.

But, with HIV's high profile in the community, Pickett and others say more testing is needed. Currently, the CDC recommends that gay men be tested once a year. Ariq Cabbler, co-chair of the Chicago Black Gay Men's Caucus, says two tests a year should be the norm; Pickett recommends three. Cabbler is worried that a new breed of promiscuous young men are not listening to the traditional HIV/AIDS messaging. The study's statistics show that men who tested negative in earlier tests are now testing positive, an indication, Cabbler says, that they are engaging in risky activity during a 90-day period of time when HIV essentially incubates in the body.

"We need to know who makes up these social networks," which include men who meet other men over the Internet or through phone networks, he says. "You're kind of playing Russian roulette."

As part of its response to the report, the health department is proposing expanded testing and condom distribution, more community-level interventions, and outreach programs, including through the Chicago Black Gay Men's Caucus. Pickett said the city has done a good job in making gay men's health a priority.

"I am happy to say that Chicago is a leader in this country in working with the community and working with gay men. I can only imagine what the numbers could be if CDPH hadn't been doing good work."

He said the AIDS Foundation and other groups are stepping up awareness efforts this month. June is Gay Pride Month.

"The moral of the story is we want to catch people early in their infection," Pickett says. "We don't want people to test positive; we want them to test negative. And we want to provide them with the right kind of counseling and the right tools to maintain that negative."

The city is formally releasing the study's results June 9 at a 1 p.m. meeting at the DePaul Center. Health officials will lead a community discussion to see how the city's response can be improved. Story From Alex Parker ChiTownDailyNews

5

AIDS Needle Robbery Threat

An alleged gay/bi-sexual "street hustler" in Tampa, Florida is accused of trying to rob a pharmacy with what he said was a needle infected with the AIDS virus has been arrested. Police say Anton Francis Ziherle, 23, walked into the West Coast Pharmacy located on North Florida Avenue Thursday afternoon with his hands in his pockets and told employees about the needle. He then demanded that they give him oxycodone. The employees chased him out without giving him the pills, the report said. Detectives said they received a tip from someone who saw news coverage of the attempted robbery and recognized the suspect's jacket.  At approximately 11 p.m., they went to the spot indicated by the viewer and arrested Ziherle, the report said. He was wearing the same clothes seen in the surveillance video.

Investigators said they did find syringes, but there was no evidence of any substance on the syringes, nor that they were contaminated with the AIDS virus. The suspect was also charged in connection with a carjacking on Monday in a Wendy's parking lot. Investigators said he knocked down a woman as she was getting into her car, then drove off. Ziherle, whose address is listed as "at large," was released from Orient Road Jail last month for three other pharmacy robberies. He was placed on supervised probation after his release. A tipster who says he is patron of a local gay bar in downtown Tampa, reported to Just One Hot Minute's tip desk that Ziherle was a known "street hustler" who often "worked" the parking lot of the gay bar. Watch the video of this story at Bay News Channel 9