This article will appear in the September 20 edition of Between the Lines Newspaper.

DETROIT-Angela Potter was having a good day Sept. 8. She was in East Tawas for an annual softball tournament. A trip she has made for at least five years.

“I play the sidelines with a beer,” she said with a chuckle.”I have a lot of friends that play on the team I go up and root for the team. It’s fun.”

Potter and her friends swung by a local store and got some more beer and food and returned to their hotel room at the Tawas Bay Beach Resort. They stayed in their room until about 8 p.m. that night, talking, laughing and drinking. At about 8 p.m., Potter said, they decided to go to the hotel bar.

In the bar, her friends chatted up a couple and bought them drinks before the group settled down at the bar. A group of four men, Potter said, came in and sat down across from her and her friends.  The two groups freely mingled, and Potter’s friends purchased shots for the men when last call was made.


[Photo of bruising on victim’s throat, courtesy of Triangle Foundation.]
Continued – At this point, Potter said, she and her friends decided to head down to the beach to play in the lake. They were there for about 15 minutes, when the four men appeared at the top of the beach and began shouting antigay slurs at the women. The men threatened to attack the women.

“My friend got nervous about it because she is conservative. She wanted to go to the lobby to complain,” Potter said.

In order to get to the hotel lobby, the women had two choices, walk back up the beach and through the bar-passing the men-or to walk all the way around the building and to enter the lobby from the front of the building.

They chose the first route. As they were passing the men, Potter said they again hurled antigay slurs at them.

Potter said she faced them off. “I was like `What is your issue? We bought you drinks and you were pretty cool.’”

Potter said one of the men attacked her.

“I swear he looked like I killed his mother. He jumped up and got in my face,” said Potter.

“You wish you were as hot as my wife,” Potter said the assailant said to her and then he “grabbed me by my throat.  It felt like an hour, but it was less than 5 minutes. I had his handprint around my throat. It just went away recently. “

The two fell to the ground, and the bartender and Potter’s friend helped to pull the man off of her. Potter said she asked for the police to be called. The assistant manager, who Potter identified as Richard Webber, was called. She said Webber took her and her friend into the main restaurant and asked if the assailant was there.

Potter said he wasn’t. Webber disappeared again, Potter said, assuring the women the police had been called.

Potter and her friends waited for the police to respond for about 45 minutes. Finally, one of her friends went back up to the hotel room and got her cell phone and called the police. When officers arrive, Potter said, they explained the cell phone call was the first one they had received.

Potter filed a police report and a picture was taken of the bruises on her neck which were the result of the choking. She said officers were able to locate the suspect in a nearby bar, but no arrest was made.

The next morning, Potter discovered one of the four men involved in the assault was staying in the hotel in a room across the hall from her. She said the man apologized for the assailant’s behavior.

But Potter felt unsafe, so she brought the situation to the attention of a woman who said she was the owner, a woman she identified as Tracie Newenhouse. Newenhouse, Potter said, was dismissive of her concerns.

“She told me if I felt unsafe I should leave,” Potter said. “But she refused to credit my money back to me and we could not afford another place while still paying for this one. So we stayed.”

East Tawas Police Chief Dennis Frank confirmed no arrest was made that night. “It is not a general practice to arrest a person in such a case, unless there is an immediate threat to the safety of the victim or of a chance the assaultive behavior would continue.”

Frank said the case is still under investigation, but declined to identify the suspect. Asked if the situation was a hate crime, he responded, “There are some issues here that lend themselves to this being a hate crime.”

Repeated calls to the Tawas Bay Beach Resort and owners Doug and Tracie Newenhouse went unreturned.

Triangle Foundation is working with Potter and has planned a demonstration in front of The Tawas Bay Beach Resort for Saturday Sept. 22 from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m.