Charge filed, and it’s a serious one: There are plenty of ways to slide into someone’s DMs. Threatening to kill them and their family because they’re gay is very much not one of them.
RELATED: OnlyFans in the Park? Man’s Alleged Public Sex Shoot Ends in Arrest
An 18-year-old Provo man is accused of stalking and threatening another man because of his sexual orientation, including, prosecutors say, repeatedly threatening him with a firearm.
Damyen Vainuku was charged Thursday in 3rd District Court with stalking, a second-degree felony; six counts of being a restricted person in possession of a weapon, a third-degree felony; and making a threat of violence and harassment, class A misdemeanors.
The stalking, harassment and threat-of-violence charges all carry “targeting” penalty enhancements if Vainuku is convicted. In Utah, those enhancements function as the state’s equivalent of a hate-crime statute.
And according to the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office, the alleged motivation was chillingly explicit.
“The defendant said he couldn’t wait to kill a gay person.”
The alleged threats started after high school
The case began with a report made through SafeUT to staff members at West High School on Aug. 21. Police say Vainuku and the alleged victim are both former West High students.
RELATED: 2 Men Killed Outside Tucson Gay Bar in Possible Hate Crime
According to charging documents, the victim told police that he had known Vainuku since high school and had repeatedly told him to leave him alone.
Instead, police allege, Vainuku continued trying to contact him.
“Vainuku continued to try to follow him on social media platforms using multiple accounts,” according to the charges.
The situation allegedly escalated on Aug. 20, when Vainuku was accused of threatening to shoot the victim and his family in Salt Lake County. Police say the threats included references to the victim’s sexual orientation.
The alleged online harassment then became considerably more frightening: Investigators say Vainuku sent the victim a picture of a firearm and threatened to kill both him and his family.
One message allegedly stated that he “can’t wait to kill a gay person.”
For anyone who has ever blocked an unwanted account only to discover another one mysteriously appearing five minutes later, the idea of someone deliberately creating multiple accounts to continue contacting them is unsettling enough. Add alleged threats involving a gun, and this moves far beyond unwanted attention.
Police say they found 13 specific threats
Salt Lake gang detectives questioned Vainuku on Aug. 25 and obtained a search warrant for his electronics, according to the charging documents.
Investigators allegedly found multiple photographs of firearms as well as threatening messages sent to the victim.
Among the messages listed in the charges were:
“Wanna make ur fam suffer then they’ll learn not to be gay”
“we all know if I seen u in person you’ll be begging me not to shoot u”
“Can’t wait to slide to ur crib and kill ur family”
“can’t wait to kill a gay (person)”
Police say they identified 13 specific threats of violence involving a firearm that were allegedly made by Vainuku to the victim.
The charges also allege that Vainuku threatened to post and distribute intimate videos of the victim — adding another layer of alleged intimidation to an already disturbing pattern.
The Hate-Crime Charge Matters
The hate-crime element of the case comes through Utah’s “targeting” penalty enhancements.
Rather than being a standalone charge called a hate crime, the enhancement can increase the penalty attached to certain offenses when prosecutors allege that a victim was targeted because of characteristics such as sexual orientation.
Here, prosecutors allege that the victim’s sexual orientation was not incidental to the threats but part of what motivated them.
That distinction matters. Being harassed is terrifying. Being threatened because someone believes your identity makes you a legitimate target carries a different kind of message — one that reaches beyond the individual victim and into the community around them.
Prosecutor: “Our entire community less safe”
Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill condemned the alleged conduct and emphasized the impact such threats can have on victims and their families.
“Threats of violence are unacceptable. Stalking and threats based on someone’s sexual orientation or how they appear are abhorrent and make our entire community less safe,” said Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill.
Gill also said the county’s Survivor and Victims Services team would work with the victim and his family.
“Our Survivor and Victims Services team will work with (the victim) and his family to ensure they have the support they need to help process the trauma they are likely experiencing after being targeted by these alleged threats.”
That last part is worth remembering. Cases like this can sometimes get reduced to charges, courtrooms and frightening screenshots. But behind all of that is an actual person who allegedly had to deal with repeated unwanted contact, threats against his life, threats against his family and messages explicitly invoking his sexual orientation.
Being gay should never come with a footnote about whether someone might decide to make you a target.
Vainuku has been accused, not convicted, and the allegations will be addressed through the court process. But the charging documents paint a deeply disturbing picture of harassment allegedly escalating into threats of deadly violence — with sexual orientation allegedly at the center of the targeting.
Source: KSL