Jailed Colorado Springs man contends he was the a victim of a hate crime

By Kyle Harris

At dusk, in Manitou Springs, Christian Radio plays; a Focus on the Family marriage counselor asks God to forgive a woman’s batterer. In a park, cops eye vacationers and an orchestra plays Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. A man shouts “homo.” Another man laughs. Above the park, in a one-story, motel apartment, Carlton Mohn waits for his boyfriend, Nathaniel Mancha, to call from the El Paso County Jail.

A loveseat and television are the living room’s only furniture. Nothing hangs on the walls but a ticking clock and a black and white, nighttime photograph of the Brooklyn Bridge.

“That’s Nate’s,” Carlton says. “He loves it.”

Nate has been in jail since he was arrested for attempted murder on March 14 of this year. The judge set bail at $125,000, a figure neither Nate nor Carlton can afford.

Not long ago, the two lived on the streets for 10 months; rent stretches their earnings. Since March, Nate has languished in jail. His trial began September 24.

Carlton’s phone vibrates. “It’s him.” Carlton answers. Minutes pass as he enters his credit card number to replenish his account. When they connect, Carlton says, “I’m here with the reporter. I was just telling him how good our relationship is.”

Carlton steps out of the apartment for privacy; their chihuahua, Bowser, spins in circles waiting for him to return.

Describing his calls with Nate, Carlton says, “We talk about Bowser and our life together. I try to give him the support he needs. We mostly talk about him coming home. I try to give him extra encouragement and let him know he has a big support team.”

Before the call cuts out, Carlton says, “I love you babe.” He hangs up, sucks back his tears, laughs, and steps into his bedroom to collect himself.

“My stomach’s hurting. I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he says.

Later, Carlton drives from Manitou Springs to Colorado Springs taking the route he and Nate took on March 1. That morning, Nate drove his Toyota truck and Carlton fretted about whether or not they would make it on time; they often got to work late. He didn’t want to again.

At a stoplight at Academy and Vickers, Carlton points out where he and Nate turned left in front of Mohammad Anthony Jafari’s green van.

Jafari claimed Nate’s truck clipped his mirror, said Detective Jerry Schiffelbein, at a pretrial hearing, April 22, 2014.

“We didn’t,” Carlton says.

The only testimony from Jafari or Nate that we were able to access came from Detective Schiffelbein. Jafari was not available to comment. Nor was his family. Nor were his supporters who had organized themselves on Facebook.

“Thanks for your message and your interest in telling both sides of the story. I am not in a position to speak on behalf of anyone without their consent, but I will get back to you after I’ve had an opportunity to find out if Jafari, his family, or his supporters would like his side of the story told,” wrote a representative from the Facebook site State of CO vs Mancha. Weeks later, the representative had yet to reply.

The lawyers prosecuting Mancha also had no comment: “We’re not permitted to discuss open/pending cases, so the prosecutors aren’t able to comment,” wrote Lee Richards of the 4^th Judicial District Attorney’s Office.

Neither Nate nor his lawyer were directly available to comment either. The story of what happened that morning comes from Detective Schiffelbein’s report about his conversations with Nate and Jafari and Carlton’s recollections.

Carlton and Nate didn’t think twice about the van as they pulled into the strip-mall where Carlton works. The two said their goodbyes. Carlton got out of the truck and realized that the van was creeping behind them, blocking Nate in.

“Is that the guy from the intersection?” Nate asked Carlton.

It was.

A large, bald man looked out the window and shouted “faggot assholes” — presumably because of the rainbow sticker on the back of the truck, Carlton says.

As Jafari crept by, he called them more names. Carlton stared him down and Jafari “burnt tires around the corner.”

Nate and Carlton shook it off, and Carlton went in to work. Nate drove away, his destination requiring him to take the same path as the van.

Carlton walks the same route: He turns the corner, heads a few hundred feet down a narrow roadway, and examines the scene of the confrontation that both Nate and Jafari described in detail to Schiffelbein.

The two tales were “for the most part, a very similar story,” Schiffelbein said.

As Nate drove forward, he saw the van parked at an angle, blocking him in.

Jafari rolled down his window and said, “Get out of your car, fag,” Carlton says.

Nate refused.

“Nate said, ‘I’m trying to leave.’ The guy did something with his phone and reached under his seat and grabbed a crowbar. He stalked toward the truck. Nate sat there not knowing what to do,” Carlton says.

Schiffelbein says the “crowbar” was actually a socket wrench. Either way, the large metal object could crack a skull.

Nate scanned his options. He had nowhere to go.

Jafari approached the truck holding the metal rod in front of him, continuing to call Nate a faggot and telling him to step out and fight, Carlton says.

Nate says Jafari hit the truck with the socket wrench; Jafari says he didn’t, according to Schiffelbein. “Mr. Jafari said he got out, was carrying, like, a wrench handle … the guy had been driving so crazy and was so belligerent, he didn’t know what he was going to do, so he was carrying the wrench handle.

“[Jafari] said that he told the driver of the Toyota [Nate] that they needed to call the police. The driver told him they weren’t going to call the police. He said: ‘You have two choices. You can wait here while I call the police or you can turn around and go the other way to leave.’ He explained that he wanted him to turn around because he was trying to … he wanted to take a photograph of the license plate with his phone.

“He said that [Nate] … chose option three, revved the engine, and bumped him with his truck.”

Carlton describes Jafari’s story as “bullshit lies.” The truck had a license plate on the front and the back. If Jafari wanted to take down the number, it was right in front of him. He invented the story to justify his attack, Carlton says.

Nobody denies that Nate’s truck hit Jafari — maybe once, maybe twice; Schiffelbein’s testimony suggests both men seemed confused about what actually occurred.

As Nate drove off, he saw Jafari stand up. It was like a horror movie, Carlton says. Nate fled.

“Nate would have done anything he could have to avoid a fight. He was just trying to carry on with his day,” Carlton says.

The police arrived and saw Jafari bleeding.

“[The police] said that when they got there, he was alert and talking. He was actually the one that made the 911 call that there had been a road rage incident, and he had got in a confrontation with another person, and that during that confrontation, he had been struck and ran over by a vehicle,” Schiffelbein says.

Despite injuries, Jafari managed to describe to the detectives the truck’s rainbow flag and Texas plates. Carlton believes the flag triggered the homophobic attack.

According to Schiffelbein, doctors diagnosed Jafari with dislocated and fractured hips, a fractured pelvis and ribs, and internal injuries. His affidavit chronicles his interviews with Carlton and Nate, but makes no mention of Jafari’s homophobic slurs.

Schiffelbein was not available to comment on why he neglected to report allegations of Jafari engaging in a homophobic attack — an omission Carlton calls “crooked.”

The day of the incident, Nate called Carlton and explained what had happened and said that it was no big deal. Carlton finished his shift without telling anybody about the incident. When he saw Nate, Carlton began to realize how serious the situation was.

He asked his boyfriend why he had not called the police. Nate feared they would not believe his side of the story. “It’s Colorado Springs; it’s not known for gay-friendly politics,” Carlton says. “I told him if the authorities get involved, it’s gonna come out that this guy is the aggressor.”

Nate resisted the idea; he didn’t trust the system and needed time to think it over.

The two had plans to visit Nate’s family in Texas. It would be the first time Carlton would meet his boyfriend’s parents. Their schedules didn’t line up, so Nate went alone. Later the media would report Nate fled Colorado.

Schiffelbein found video evidence showing Nate’s truck passing by near the time of the incident, Carlton says. The police put out a media advisory announcing that Nate was the suspect.

Media covered the case as a road rage incident. The Jafari family offered a reward for any information leading to Nate’s capture. The media unquestioningly assumed he was guilty, “a monster,” as Jafari’s sister Jennifer called Nate on a Facebook page.

In Texas, Nate decided turn himself in and returned to Colorado.

March 12, Carlton was grocery shopping when the police approached him. An officer said, “We’re looking for Nathaniel and we’d like to talk to you.”

Carlton agreed. The police ran a background check, found an outstanding warrant, and took him to the station where Schiffelbein questioned him. Carlton told the story as Nate had relayed it to him. Within 24 hours, the police released Carlton.

Two days later, he, Nate, and a friend waited at a hotel to meet with a lawyer to accompany Nate to turn himself in. Before the lawyer arrived, the police showed up, guns drawn, and arrested all three. Nate was charged with attempted homicide; Carlton was charged for helping Nate hide.

In jail, Nate did not know that the police had arrested Carlton too, as he was first to get carted away. “When he saw I had been arrested, he just broke down,” Carlton says.

Before his court date, Carlton called the Colorado Anti-Violence Program seeking legal advice. Director of Advocacy Lynne Sprague helped him find out what he faced in court. On his date, all charges were dropped.

Nate remained in jail where, according to Carlton, guards denied him needed prescriptions for more than a month, and when they finally gave him medicine, it was the wrong kind.

In his first month in jail, Nate suffered relentless bullying. Fellow inmates ridiculed him calling him “faggot.” He plummeted into depression.

“Without proper medicine, he is getting sicker every day. His spirits are low,” says Carlton, who listens and offers words of encouragement to Nate while trying to keep it together.

“The crazy thing about jail is that Nate doesn’t physically see Carlton. He can only see him through the video screen,” says Sprague. Because she has professional visitor status, she can visit Nate in person. “He can see me through the glass. When I go down there, he can see another human being — granted, through glass —but he can see somebody who cares about him.”

CAVP staff spends a lot of time talking with Carlton about his feelings about the case. “It shores him up emotionally so he can feel replenished and offer a lot of support for Nate when they talk.”

Sprague spoke with Nate and Carlton about other LGBTQ people jailed for self-defense and how community organizing transformed their experiences of incarceration.

“We talked about the value of those campaigns and the kinds of resources that we can bring to a person who is facing those charges. Carlton was pretty excited about hearing about those options and wanted to build a more formalized campaign,” Sprague says.

With CAVP, Carlton organized the Justice for Nate campaign to raise legal defense funds and encourage people to write Nate letters.

“We’re really trying to get Nate some emotional support. Jail is lonely. Jail is scary. In some of the letters I’ve received from Nate, he spends a lot of time feeling really overwhelmed emotionally,” Sprague says. “We wanted to use the campaign as a way to continue larger dialogues about jails, prisons, hate crimes, and some of the root causes of homophobia.”

Sprague says Jafari’s alleged attack exemplifies an escalation of hate crimes against LGBTQ people. “I think there’s this myth that things are getting better for LGBTQ communities and people cite things like the push for marriage equality and Laverne Cox on the cover of Time Magazine. But what do you mean things are getting better?

“The lived experience LGBTQ folks have is not improving and in some places is getting worse for certain parts of the community. It’s erroneous to say things are getting better, when in fact the root causes of homophobia and transphobia are still deeply ingrained in our culture.”

Schiffelbein’s alleged omission of Jafari’s homophobic slurs is not uncommon, Sprague says. In 2013, 80 percent of callers who reported hate crimes to law enforcement experienced police misconduct including harassment, omission, and disbelief.

“There is not really a track record that tells us the legal system is up for the challenge of talking about marginalized communities’ experiences of being targeted in this culture. There aren’t cases restoring our faith or creating faith in the system to be able to hold the complexities in that dialogue,” Sprague says.

Carlton once had faith in the system, but he does not anymore. He no longer feels safe in Colorado. Nate’s case proves that as a gay man, he cannot trust law enforcement to support his right to self-defense.

Ready to turn in for the night, Carlton talks about how he wishes Nate could come home. “He’s always been there for me. I’ve always been there for him. We always find a way to laugh together,” Carlton says.

After the trial, a hopeful Carlton plans to splurge on a new bedroom set to celebrate his boyfriend’s release. “I want him to have somewhere comfortable to sleep.”

UPDATE

Nathaniel Mancha, the subject of our Oct. 1 story “Hit and Run or Self-Defense?” was accused of running over Anthony Jafari in Colorado Springs. On Monday, the court convicted Mancha of first-degree assault and leaving the scene of an accident.

The jury was hung on the charge of attempted homicide and the judge declared a mistrial on that count. On Tuesday, the District Attorney opted not to attempt to retry the case.

Mancha’s supporters say he hit Jafari to escape an eminent homophobic hate crime. Jafari approached Mancha’s vehicle wielding a large metal object and screaming homophobic slurs, according to Mancha’s boyfriend Carlton Mohn.

KRDO reports that in court Jafari admitted to “cursing violently” at Mancha, but said he did not threaten him or engage in homophobic behavior.

Sentencing will take place on Dec. 2 and Mancha faces a mandatory minimum of 10 years and a maximum of 33 years in prison.

In a statement, the Colorado Anti-Violence Program wrote, “While we are relieved that Nate and his family do not have to face another trial experience, we are angered and saddened that yet another community member is facing the harsh realities of the criminal injustice system. Our hearts are heavy today as we grieve this verdict with Nate and his family.

“We know all too well that LGBTQ communities face severe and deadly violence. We also know that LGBTQ people who defend themselves from violence are often fighting for their lives, as Nate was on
March 1st, 2014.

“Colorado Anti-Violence Program calls on its community of supporters, organizations, and families to come forward to support Nate and continue the fight against hate violence. CAVP will continue to support Nate with exploring legal options, getting the full story out, and continuing the crucial dialogue about survivors who are prosecuted for self defense.”