Shenandoah Valley Friends
Reprinted from 
Friday, August 21, 1998
Gay Fairfax Couple Faces Cherry Bombs, Threats
Note found in door says couple is ‘lucky’ it wasn’t bomb; incident classifed as hate crime
by Lou Chibbaro Jr.
Police in Fairfax County, Virginia, say they have yet to identify a suspect in an incident last week in which someone ignited cherry bombs in front of the home of a Gay male couple and attached to their front door a note which called them "fags" and said, "This could have been a bomb."
Police have classified the incident as a hate crime.
Robert Veltkamp, 45, said he rushed to the front door of his suburban house in the Fort Hunt section of Fairfax about 12:15 a.m. Friday, Aug. 14, after hearing what sounded like unusually loud firecrackers exploding on the street. When he arrived at the door, Veltkamp said, he found lodged between the inner door and an outer screen door a carefully printed note that included a drawing of a rainbow flag. The person who wrote the note placed the rainbow flag inside a circle with a diagonal line running through the flag.
"You are lucky!" the note said. "This could of [sic] been a bomb. BOOM! There could of been 2 less fags in the word! *Fags SUCK."
"It wasn’t the most pleasant thing to find on your door in the middle of the night," Veltkamp said.
Veltkamp, who works for the federal government, said he and his partner have lived in their Fairfax house for 12 years. His partner, who is 50 years old, has requested that he not be identified for job-related reasons, Veltkamp said. The two have been a couple for 18 years.
Veltkamp called the incident a "horrifying" experience, but he said his neighbors have been "overwhelmingly supportive" and that he and his partner have no intention of moving.
Upon arriving on the scene, Fairfax police found plastic shell casings of several cherry bombs, which are commonly used as fireworks, lying on the opposite side of the street from Veltkamp’s house. Police found the casings near the entrance to a small park in which a path leads from the street near Veltkamp’s house to another street.
"That path was the most likely escape route for whoever did this," Veltkamp said.
Fairfax Police spokesperson Thomas Harrington said police have no suspects but are continuing their investigation into the incident. Harrington said he knows of no other incidents similar to this one that have been directed against Gay people in Fairfax.
Veltkamp said that while he and his partner believe police have been helpful and cooperative in their dealings with them, police have yet to let them know whether they have contacted someone that the couple believes could be a suspect in the incident. According to Veltkamp, for the past year, a young male has been shouting anti-Gay names at them as he drives by their house in a car. Veltkamp said he recorded the license number and model and make of the youth’s car several months ago car but did not turn that information over to police until after the cherry bomb incident.
"They told us they’re looking into this," Veltkamp said, in referring to the youth’s car license number.
Stephanie Burns, chairperson of the Fairfax Alliance for Citizen Equality (FACE), a group that promotes civil rights for Gays, called the incident a sign of "the current atmosphere of intolerance" directed against Gay people.
"I urge the fair-minded people of Fairfax County to join us in condemning this cowardly act," Burns said in a statement. "Whether the issue is race, religion, or sexual orientation, discrimination and hate violence must not be tolereated."
Copyright © 1998 The Washington Blade Inc. A member of the gay.net community.