Arrest Made; Police Say Iowa Man Was Beaten With Bat

Police have made an arrest in the case of a Waterloo, Iowa, man beaten to death on a friend's front porch while being called antigay slurs.

The The Courier of Waterloo-Cedar Falls reports that Paris Akeem Anding, 19, was arrested Thursday on charges of second-degree murder. Anding is being held in jail without bond. And new details about the killing of of 19-year-old Marcellus Andrews have emerged from a criminal complaint filed today, according to the Associated Press. Police say Andrews was killed after being hit in the head with a baseball bat.

Iowa police have so far refused to investigate Andrews's murder as a hate crime despite witnesses saying they heard antigay slurs used during the beating. Andrews's family recently spoke out, saying they also do not want the murder prosecuted as a hate crime because Andrews was not gay. The victim's cousin told the media that just because a man is effeminate, it doesn't make him gay.

Whether a victim is gay, though, is not a legal requirement for an attack to be labeled a hate crime. Police say the crime is not being pursued as motivated by antigay attitudes because the attack happened as the result of a long-running dispute between rivals.