The vicious gaybashing that left a man in Nova Scotia paralyzed from the waist down was felt at the InterPride 2013 conference in Montreal.
Delegates from Halifax Pride were saddened to hear that 27-year-old Scott Jones was attacked Oct 12 in New Glasgow.
Reports say Jones was stabbed twice in the back and his throat slashed. The stabbing severed his spinal cord and has left him paralyzed from the waist down, CBC reports.
Friends and family believe he was targeted because he’s gay.
Adam Reid, a director at Halifax Pride, is an acquaintance of Jones and was visibly shocked by the news.
“Scott and I went to university together,” he says. “We have a number of friends in common. I know him to be a really friendly and outgoing guy.”
Jones is a musician and well known around the community, Reid says. “He is just a very jovial and beloved guy.
“It’s all incredibly savage. He was stabbed in the back. It sounds like the attack was full of anger and hate. It’s an act that’s hard to understand. And it makes us all feel so vulnerable.”
On Oct 13, members of Halifax Pride draped a rainbow flag across a table at the conference and encouraged everyone to sign it. Reid says it’s a small gesture to send home to Jones’s family to show that everyone is deeply affected by the attack.
“It’s horrific,” says Ramona Westgate, chair of Halifax Pride. “It’s a real reminder of why we’re here [at the conference] and why we do what we do.”
Police have charged Shane Edward Matheson, 19, of Trenton, Nova Scotia, with attempted murder, aggravated assault and possession of a weapon dangerous to the public peace.
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