A Barcelona court has acquitted a man accused of a hate crime for hurling homophobic insults at a young man at a McDonald’s restaurant during LGTBI Pride in the Catalan capital in 2019, as well as the establishment’s security guard, who was also indicted by the prosecutor’s office and demanded censure for his alleged inaction in the attack. The court condemns the insults and humiliations inflicted by the accused, but concludes that they are not grave enough to go beyond the limits of the penal code.
The incidents date back to 2019 and went viral after being recorded on video. The young man was at a McDonald’s establishment in Plaza Universitat, very close to where Pride Barcelona was celebrating LGTBI Pride, when he was scolded by another customer. “I’ll straighten you out,” the attacker threatened.
“It doesn’t matter to me that you’re a faggot,” the accused said, followed by a number of homophobic expressions that the court does not consider criminal: “Cover up, you embarrass others and there are children too”; “Then we are shocked by women who are raped and murdered for dressing provocatively and you are an example that can happen to you too”; “You better bring a bodyguard, because now when you go out, I will give you such a blow that your cock will run off”; “Let’s go outside the campus, I will straighten you out, it’s a hell of a day, do you want to see how I let you loose?”
In their ruling, the judges of the third section of the Barcelona court clearly condemned the accused’s behavior, but considered that it was not a hate crime, as the prosecutor’s office said. “The expressions are intolerable and we must reject them without any measure,” the court stressed.
However, the court found that the “discussion and the use of rhetorical and quarrelsome words” did not contain sufficient facts to constitute a crime against moral integrity or a hate crime, both because of the context in which they occurred and because of their literalness.
The court gives credibility to the statement of the accused, who said that his insults and humiliation were due to the young man’s “manner of dressing” (which he considered “inappropriate” in the presence of minors in the establishment), and not because of his sexual status. This thesis, according to the sentence, “reflects a closed-minded and critical view from a point of view of tolerance and respect for others,” but it rejects the homophobic intent made by the prosecutor’s office.
The court finds a possible minor crime of threats in expressions such as “This is the day to release the hosts,” “I will straighten you out,” or “When you get out I will punish you so hard that your man will go away,” but they cannot be convicted of these because the person has not been charged with the crime.
The sentence also indicates that neither the person who threatened the young man nor the accused security guard participated in the dissemination of the video of the events, so none of them “took the opportunity to spread hate speech against LGBTI groups” as the prosecutor’s office alleged.
“The incident was limited to an incident in a place that was not very busy and no one joined in the actions of the defendant nor did he incite anyone to attack those two people,” the court ruled. The court also dismissed the hate crime charge. The security guard was charged for his alleged inaction.
“At no time,” the sentence emphasizes, did the guard “favor the language-based attitude of the attacker,” but instead “avoided any contact between the two” and ensured that the conflict did not escalate. In short, contrary to what the prosecutor’s office said, he did his job well.
The Public Ministry, which can appeal the sentence, requested 18 months in prison for hate crime in competition against moral integrity for the man accused of threatening the young man, as well as 9 months in prison for the McDonald’s security guard for not preventing it.