Credit to Andy Ngo who posted the details of this story on Twitter today. It started earlier this week with what appeared to be a serious crime. A 39-year-old man in San Diego named Scott Rowin said he was harassed and then set on fire by a couple of men who targeted him because he is gay.
Last Monday night, Rowin says stopped by The Loft on Fifth Avenue and inquired about a job. He left past 8 p.m. and headed south, towards his downtown apartment, intending to call an Uber.
His memory is hazy, but somewhere within a few blocks, he heard what sounded like two people yelling gay slurs.
Rowin says he yelled back and then heard footsteps coming up behind him.
As he turned around, he says he caught a quick glimpse of one of the people, a man in his 20s or 30s. At the same time, he says a liquid was thrown at him, with the consistency of water.
“Immediately after that, I went up like coals on a barbecue. It started off really big,” said Rowin.
Rowin suffered second-degree burns on his side and back, photos of which he shared with news outlets. He said he was absolutely convinced the attack was a hate crime and added that the only people who would be walking around with “flammable liquid” would be someone out to target “the LGBT community.” He filed a police report and said he wanted to raise awareness that “There are still a lot of haters out there.”
As described this really would be a terrible crime. But police did investigate and found the story was quite a bit different from what Rowin claimed.
According to San Diego Police, officers received calls about a man attacking a pregnant woman on the 900 block of 6th Avenue just after 10:40 p.m. on June 12.
“Officers were dispatched and arrived within minutes, but the suspect had already fled the scene,” the department said.
The department said the woman was bleeding and suffering from injuries when officers arrived. She was taken to the hospital for treatment.
About an hour later police got a call from Rowin claiming he’d been set on fire by two men. But they were pretty quickly able to work out that Rowin was the suspect in the attack on the pregnant woman. And there’s apparently no doubt what happened here because police found video showing the attack.
Investigators found security footage that showed the attack on Sixth Avenue, [police Lt. Adam] Sharki said in the news release.
The video shows the initial physical assault by the man on the pregnant woman and the subsequent “use of fire as a weapon” by the pregnant woman on the man, the lieutenant said.
The video has not been released publicly.
Police say they are still investigating and haven’t reached a final conclusion about whether any hate crime was committed, but they also said there was no danger to the wider community. I have no idea what really happened here. Why would a man be attacking a pregnant woman in the street? How did she manage to set him on fire? Given that the video shows Rowin was the instigator and the fact that he put the woman in the hospital, she’s probably going to have a pretty good argument for self-defense. But who knows what police will uncover next.
What does seem clear is that Rowin was not set on fire by a pair of angry gay-bashers roaming the streets of San Diego looking for victims. So at this point, his story is looking like Jussie Smollett 2.0. Not coincidentally, the updated story below notes that Rowin has stopped responding to the reporter’s texts and calls seeking a reaction to the new information. Rowin should probably stop talking to the media and consider hiring a lawyer as his prior statements are not going to play well in court if he winds up facing assault charges.
Read the full article here
