The Murders of Hattie Mae Cohens and Brian Mock

In 1992, Salem, Oregon was filled with racial tension and homophobia, and it was because of this that Hattie Mae Cohen and Brian Mock lost their lives. What started as the murder of 2 people, sparked the struggle and the fight for equal rights for the LGBTQ community locally in Oregon, and across the nation.

September 26th, 1992

On September 26th, 1992 in Salem, Oregon, Hattie Mae Cohens and Brian Mock were at their apartment with their friends. Most of the people in the apartment were asleep when 2 firebombs came crashing in through the windows. These were crude bombs made from bottles filled with gasoline and set on fire. While the friends all escaped the fiery apartment, Hattie Mae and Brian didn’t. They burned to death in the basement apartment they called home.

Hattie Mae was a 29-years-old African American woman who identified as a lesbian.

Brian was a 45-year-old, reportedly disabled, white man who identified as gay.

Hattie Mae Cohens and Brian Mock were killed for who they were: gay. There was the added issue of race for Hattie Mae, but in the aftermath, her race became less of a focal point than their sexual orientations. Their murders would be a trigger for many activist groups to fight for the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals.

Leading Up to the Bombing

According to basicrights.org, Oregon in 1992 was “Ground Zero for Anti-LGBTQ Hate.” A specific group called Oregon Citizen’s Alliance was at the heart of this hatred, and it’s because of their “anti-gay” proclamations that some people felt safe to terrorize anyone that doesn’t identify as heterosexual and they were the reason that anyone who did identify as anything other than 100% straight felt like they had to hide everything about who they truly were. Oregon Citizen’s Alliance, OCA, was “a conservative activist group and political action committee” that was started in 1986. The OCA’s goal in life was to do anything in their power to keep the LGBTQ+ community from existing in their state (and probably the world). They sponsored initiatives on the Oregon voting ballots and attempted to get the “right” people into the senate. Everything they did was geared toward undoing any sort of protections that were in place to keep homosexual people from being discriminated against.

OCA also had other interests, though. They also had very serious opinions about women’s uteruses. In 1990, they sponsored Ballot Measure 10 which would require parental notification before a minor could get an abortion. However, this measure was defeated. But their biggest concern was with “homosexuals.”

In 1988 the OCA collected signatures on a petition that was designed to overturn the governor’s executive order that banned discrimination in state government based on sexual orientation. This was Ballot Measure 8 and because of their petition, the measure won by 5.4% thus prohibiting job protections for homosexuals in state government. In 1992, OCA started to work on it’s largest campaign, Ballot Measure 9. This initiative would amend Oregon’s constitution to “recognize homosexuality, pedophilia, sadism, and masochism as abnormal, wrong, unnatural, and perverse” and “prevent any ‘special rights’ for homosexuals and bisexuals.” In this campaign, OCA compared homosexuality to bestiality and pedophilia. Being homosexual would be considered a “moral offense” just like those.

According to The Bay Area Reporter, Ballot Measure 9 would make it so that…

No group that is perceived to “promote, encourage, or facilitate” homosexuality could use public facilities or retain state licensing.
Public libraries and public TV would be required to remove books and programs that are perceived as promoting, encouraging, or facilitating homosexuality.
Schools at every level (including universities) would be required to censor information about homosexuality, pedophilia, sadism, and masochism are “abnormal, wrong, unnatural, and perverse” and that these behaviors are to be discouraged and avoided.
In child custody cases, courts would be required to take children away from any parent who is perceived to be homosexual.
Portland’s sexual orientation civil rights ordinance would be null and void.
The Portland Gay Pride Parade would be illegal.

With the focus on this campaign, there began to be multiple “anti-gay” hate crimes. In the months before Hattie Mae and Brian’s murders, violence had been escalating. Arson, vandalism, and verbal threats were coming from both sides of the argument. Car windows were being smashed on cars with bumper stickers referencing Ballot Measure 9 and churches were being attacked (again, both sides). Then, on September 26, 1992, Hattie Mae and Brian were murdered.

Brian was frequently bullied in his neighborhood just for being gay and now the bullying was turning physical. One source says that Brian was in an altercation on September 26th and Hattie Mae defended him. Another source says a family member of one of the victims got into an argument with the attackers and that Hattie Mae had been having arguments with skinheads for weeks. Another source says that the friends of Hattie Mae and Brian that were at their house had busted into another apartment earlier that day when they overheard one of the men yelling racial slurs. One of the friends punched one of the men in the face.

All of those versions could technically have happened at separate times, but whichever scenario led to the bombing, the people who were responsible remain the same:

21-year-old Philip Wilson
22-year-old Leon Tucker
22-year-old Sean Edwards
19-year-old Yolanda Cotton

A Little Bit About This Crew

Yolando Cotton claimed that she just wanted to belong, and that’s how she ended up with the skin-head group. Cotton didn’t speak out for a while after the murders, but she later told the Seattle Times her life story. The Seattle Times reported that Cotton had lived a hard life where she had been raped and beaten by her mother’s boyfriend as a small child. Cotton’s mother was “mentally retarded” (The Seattle Times’ words!) and didn’t or couldn’t stop the abuse. When Cotton was a little older, her mom went out to run errands and never came back. Cotton was placed in a foster home and eventually adopted.

Her new family was very religious (Baptist minister father) and she felt “alienated” from them so one day she slit her wrists. She wasn’t successful in her suicide attempt and wore long sleeves to cover the scars from the family. Later she swallowed a bunch of pills and began vomiting. Her parents made her go to church as usual and never talked about the incident. At age 15, Cotton ran away. After her 16th birthday, she was caught by police and returned to her adoptive family. Cotton was placed on house arrest by her parents for 6 months. The next year, Cotton was on a Job Corps program in Reno. This is where she met Philip Wilson. In 1991, the pair moved to Salem. In 1992, Cotton gave birth to a baby girl. Wilson and Cotton couldn’t support the baby and ended up giving her up for adoption.

The longer the couple stayed in Salem, the more friends they made in the skin-head community. They didn’t come to Salem for this reason, but while there, this is who they began to spend time with. Cotton said that she eventually renounced the racist beliefs, but didn’t abandon her friends. Philip Wilson and Yolanda Cotton had prior police records that linked them to white supremacist activity. Wilson and Cotton were members of American Front, a neo-Nazi white supremacist group along with Leon Tucker and Sean Edwards. All 4 were considered part of the “skinhead” community. Tucker and Edwards were placed at the Hattie Mae and Brian’s house by eyewitnesses as well.

In the version where the friends busted in an apartment (which is the version that Cotton told as well as another source), 4 of Cohens’ friends kicked in the door of an apartment that Tucker and Edwards had been visiting. The friends had heard a racial insult yelled so loudly that they heard them in a separate apartment. One of the friends punched Edwards in the mouth. Edwards and Tucker went to the apartment that they shared with Wilson and his girlfriend, Cotton, where they would assemble the firebombs.

Later they went back to Hattie Mae and Brian’s house and threw the bottles of gasoline through the windows. Then, they went to a party. Tucker was heard saying, “Mess with the best — die with the rest.”

In October 1992, the Bay Area Reporter ran a story about the after-effects of Hattie Mae and Brian’s murders. Ballot Measure 9 was being fought with another campaign called No on 9. Hattie Mae and Brian became martyrs for the No on 9 campaign. No on 9 was a campaign that was geared towards bringing down Ballot Measure 9 that the OCA was pushing. The Harvey Milk Progressive Democratic Club was an advocacy group that advocated for the civil rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. They held a fundraiser on October 8th that had comedians and music groups, and their goal was to raise enough money to counter the $20,000 donation that Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition made to the OCA and to promote Campaign for a Hate Free Oregon.

It would seem that many Oregonians were opposed to Ballot Measure 9 and in fact, the Bay Area Reporter said that more than 200 Oregonian organizations endorsed No on 9. The Reporter said that it was endorsed by “both political parties, the entire congressional delegation, every major labor union, business community, and most religious institutions in the state.” Caroline Young, a No on 9 campaign spokesperson said, “People are hiding. Even if Ballot Measure 9 loses in November, they’ve forced people back into the closet — they’re literally fearing for their lives.”

Another spokesperson for No on 9, Suzanne Pharr said, “What Ballot Measure 9 has done is open up a window for people who are bigoted to display those feelings, and that’s what happened in the Salem slayings.”

Convictions and Aftermath

Yolanda Cotton was acquitted of all the charges. Though she was part of the planning, she was home and in bed when the fire happened. Sean Edwards pleaded guilty to murder and agreed to testify against Leon Tucker and Philip Wilson in exchange for the chance at parole. Edwards admitted that he threw the first firebomb. On April 8, 1993, Tucker and Wilson were convicted of assault, arson, and racial intimidation. Tucked admitted that he tossed the 2nd firebomb and Wilson filled the bottles with gasoline and drove the crew to and from the apartment. The pair made an attempt to apologize, but the judge likened the apology to “foxhole religion.” Basically, saying that they are sorry they got caught.

Wilson received a sentence of 35 years, Tucker got 30 years, and Edwards got 25 years.

The DA of Marion County actually said, “This clearly was not a crime targeted at homosexuals. When all is said and done, the primary motive for the killings will likely not be race or sexual orientation, but both of them played a role.” Edwards claimed that Hattie Mae and Brian weren’t the intended targets, but it was pretty obvious from anyone who witnessed the arguments and bullying that this was related to race and/or sexual orientation. Witnesses told the police that both Hattie Mae and Brian had been harassed about their sexual orientation and Hattie Mae had been harassed about her race.

Ballot Measure 9 was eventually defeated and HB 3500 was passed in the state legislature in 1993. HB 3500 prohibited local laws that “single out citizens or groups of citizens on account of sexual orientation,” and it was later upheld by the Oregon Supreme Court in 1995.

But OCA couldn’t let that sit. They started working on Ballot Measure 13 in 1994 after the state legislature passed HB 3500. This would “restrict public access to materials dealing with homosexuality.” Basically if books or pamphlets or whatever talked about homosexuality they wanted that banned. Ballot Measure 13 also failed, but, honestly, not by much. It got 48.5% of the votes.

In 1996, Lon Mabon (one of the founders of OCA) ran for the Oregon Senate seat against a man named Gordon Smith, but he lost. In 2000, there was a lawsuit against the OCA that came about because of an incident in 1992. Back in 92, OCA communications director, Scott Lively forcibly kicked a gay-rights activist out of an event hosted by the OCA. The suit also said that OCA hid some of their assets to avoid paying a settlement in this incident. OCA lost the lawsuit.

In 2000, OCA tried to propose a 2nd Ballot Measure 9 that would prohibit schools in Oregon from “encouraging, promoting, or sanctioning homosexual and bisexual behaviors.” This measure also failed with only 47.1% of votes. In 2002, Mabon was put in jail for refusing to comply with the judge’s orders to produce financial statements relating to the 1992 case. Then Mabon still had the audacity to run for senate again! He ran as a member of the Constitution Party and lost when he only got 1.7% of the votes.

Mabon and Lively tried to bring back the OCA in 2007 and tried to get new anti-gay measures placed on the 2008 ballot. They failed again. Lively then decided to write a book. He wrote a book called The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party and would also promote “anti-gay” legislation in Russia and Uganda. Lively also has a group called the Abiding Truth Ministries that is listed as a hate group by Southern Poverty Law Center.

In response to the murders of Hattie Mae Cohens and Brian Mock, Kelly Cogswell among others founded an activist group called “Lesbian Avengers.” Cogswell was a New York journalist and a blogger about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues. She and her cohorts in the Lesbian Avengers would frequently protest about LGBTQ+ rights and these became known as “Lesbian Avengers Eat Fire Too” when on Halloween of 1992, the Lesbian Avengers ate fire and chanted, “The fire will not consume us. We will take it and make it our own.” After this, they marched down 5th Avenue in New York carrying their torches.

This was just the beginning for the Lesbain Avengers.

A few months after the fire-eating protest, the Denver mayor came to New York to promote tourism, but the Lesbian Avengers were not going to let him come and go peacefully while Colorado’s Amendment II was still active. This was an amendment approved by the voters of Colorado in 1992 that would prevent “any city, town, or county in the state from taking any legislative, executive or judicial action to recognize homosexuals or bisexuals as a protected class.” The Lesbain Avengers followed the Denver mayor everywhere he went on his visit. Later, on April 24, 1993, 20,000+ women showed up at the capital for another protest. This would be the first-ever, “Dyke March.” The next march was in New York in 1994 with another 20,000+ people.

The “Woke”ening

In 1994, James Lecesne created a character for a one-man show called “Word of Mouth.” This character was named “Trevor.” It’s a 20ish minute movie about a teenage boy in the 80s struggling with learning that he’s gay and dealing with other people’s opinions of homosexuals. He’s bullied by peers and rejected by his friends. Trevor’s parents don’t understand him and disregard his frequent staged suicide attempts. He gets so depressed that he attempts suicide (with Asprin and he makes a joke about it), but when he is unsuccessful he meets a male candy stripper at the hospital who tells him he has to take life one day at a time. He invites Trevor to a Diana Ross concert (Trevor’s FAVE) and Trevor decides he needs to live…at least until tomorrow and dances into the house. (Happy ending from a rough message.)

Trevor’s story was seen by producers, Peggy Rajski and Randy Stone who became enthralled by the story and decided that it would make a fantastic short film. They asked Lecense to develop a screenplay and from there Trevor became an Academy Award-winning live-action short film. This ended up turning into a national movement. It was aired on HBO with Ellen Degenerous as the host. Peggy Rajski discovered that young people like Trevor had no resources to turn to when they face the challenges Trevor and people like him often face. Rajski knew she had to do something.

She recruited mental health experts and developed a 24-hour crisis line with funds secured by James Lecense. The same night that the movie aired on HBO, the Trevor Lifeline was launched. Trevor Lifeline is the first national crisis intervention and suicide prevention lifeline for LGBTQ youth.

According to The Trevor Project’s national survey on LGBTQ youth mental health, “Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth often face disparities in suicide risk compared to their non-LGBTQ peers. Research has documented that LGBTQ youth report significantly higher rates of having seriously considered suicide, making a plan to attempt suicide, and attempting suicide compared to heterosexual and/or cisgender youth (Kann et al., 2018; Marshal et al, 2013; Toomey, Syvertsen, & Shramko, 2018). These disparities in suicidality are thought to be due to stressors and discrimination associated with being in a socially stigmatized position in society (Meyer, 2003), as opposed to being LGBTQ in and of itself.”

Furthermore, they report that “more than 1.8 million LGBTQ youth between the ages of 13 and 24 in the U.S. seriously consider suicide each year.” The Trevor Project survey also said that 1 in 3 LGBTQ youth said that they have been physically threatened or harmed because of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. This is part of the reason for the suicidal thoughts.

The Williams Institute with UCLA independently researches gender identity and sexual orientation law and public policies and they have determined that 4.5% the population in America identify as LGBT. And Oregon actually had the second-highest percentage of people that identified as LGBT in the US with 5.6% of the population. Only beat out by Washington DC who couldn’t be touched with 9.8% of their population reporting that they identify as LGBT.

Despite the 28 years from Hattie Mae and Brian’s murders, this type of violence is still very prevalent. The Human Rights Campaign stated that so far in 2020 there have been at least 26 instances of transgender and gender non-conforming individuals being killed for their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. This number was the same for 2018 and 2019. Furthermore, the majority of these were black women like Hattie Mae. To this day, 4 US states (Arkansas, Georgia, South Carolina, and Wyoming) do not have a no-hate-crime statute.

Hattie Mae Cohens and Brian Mock may have been the “first victims of this war on queens” (Bay Area Reporter’s words), but they were certainly not the last. Unfortunately, hate crimes continue and will likely never stop (as horrible as that is) because there are always those people who are “homophobic” and/or racist, but in today’s world, people who don’t identify as heterosexual have many more resources and advocates than were available in the 1990s.