Randy Gamel-Medler, his husband, and their son moved to a small town in Oklahoma. Town leaders treated them abusively and threatened them on a number of occasions.
The threats were made good when Gamel-Medler's home was vandalized, set aflame, and then Fire department did not react. The home was located just a few blocks from the Station, but burnt to the ground.
Gamel-Medler is suing the lot of them in Federal court.
Randy Gamel-Medler, his husband and their 7-year-old adopted African-American son moved to Hitchcock, Oklahoma in August 2016. Roughly a month later, Gamel-Medler was threatened by a town trustee at a town council meeting after he learned that Gamel-Medler, a white man, had a son who is African-American, according to the complaint. “What’s going to happen when your house burns down and we don’t send out the fire trucks?” Meradith Norris, a defendant in the lawsuit, asked. Town officials ignored the police report Gamel-Medler filed.
In May, Gamel-Medler was assaulted by defendant Jonita Pauls Jacks, who called him a “fucking queer” and threatened his son, saying that she was going to grab his son and “rip his nigger head off and shit down his throat.” The town deputy sheriff refused to allow Gamel-Medler to file a police report and chalked up the incident to free speech.
On May 28, the complaint describes an incident in which Gamel-Medler called the sheriff’s office to report a burglary after he heard glass breaking in his garage. He then called the fire department to report a fire in his garage. But the fire department, which is located one block from Gamel-Medler’s house, failed to arrive in time to save his home. As his house burned, four of the defendants, including Mayor Edsall, looked on, according to the complaint.
Gamel-Medler quit his job and moved his family out of Hitchcock.
Nine defendants are named in the lawsuit – including Rick Edsall, mayor of Hitchcock and Tony Almaguer, sheriff of Blaine County
Via Proud Parenting
