Waterloo, Iowa police still refuse to call beating death of Marcellus Andrews a hate crime.

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More details on police refusal to treat case as hate crime.
Vigil, memorial and funeral schedules.

Waterloo Police Lt. Michael McNamee

CBS affiliate KGAN in Cedar Rapids reports:

Friends who were with Marcellus on Friday say his attackers called him gay slurs before they started beating him. Waterloo police are investigating that as a motive. But they also say Marcellus already had a history with his attackers and they’d been involved in a fight months before.

“There was some bad blood between that and they just happened to bump into each other and some other people got involved in the altercation and it kind of escalated from that,” says Waterloo Police Lieutenant Michael McNamee.

But friends say Marcellus always tried to make peace

"Just happened to bump into each other," Lieutenant McNamee? Really? When a truckload of the people who beat him to death drove to the house in which Andrews sat in an enclosed porch?

“Marcellus don’t bother nobody, let him be what he wants to be if that’s the case, you don’t have nothing to do with that,” said Samtrese Harris, a close friend of Andrews.

"Had a history with his attackers?" "Some bad blood between them?"

Exactly what does that mean, Lieutenant McNamee?

That a group of homophobic thugs administering a fatal beat-down while yelling gay slurs gets a pass on account of "bad blood" and a "history" because they already assaulted the victim before?

Is that what you mean? Really?