Richard Heakin — who was only 21 — and his friend in Tucson were celebrating at the Stonewall Tavern, a noted gay nightlife establishment in the city. Heakin intended to return home to Nebraska the next day. While at the tavern, a group of four teens were harassing patrons of the bar from the parking lot in the early morning hours. After one physical confrontation, the police were called to the scene — around the same time Heakin and his friend tried to leave.
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In the Stonewall parking lot — no connection to the Stonewall Inn in New York, where the Stonewall riots happened some years earlier — Heakin was attacked by one teen and knocked unconscious with a single blow to the neck. He died a short time later from what a medical examiner ruled was massive hemorrhaging. The four teenagers involved in the attack were arrested that same evening. According to a local pastor, there were a number of murders in Tucson around that same time that the police largely ignored. The Stonewall Tavern also reported patterns of harassment of Tucson’s gay citizens, even from local law enforcement.
