![]() “I had about five seconds to either fight or flight. Dismounting from his bike, the man walked towards Shepherd. ![]() Shepherd’s annoyance turned to agitation-he turned around, telling the man to fuck off, to get away from him. But the shouting followed him, growing louder, closer, more aggressive. So he turned back around and kept walking. Shepherd isn’t used to being harassed-he’s six feet tall, and strong, weighing more than 200 pounds. “He was just screaming out a bunch of homophobic slurs,” says Shepherd. Turning, he spotted an angry older man on a bike, perhaps in his 50s, shouting at him. It was early August, and Shepherd, a 34-year-old nurse living in Parkdale, was on his daily walk when he heard someone yelling. One day this summer, however, Shepherd found himself with no other option. He was only able to extricate himself when his mother spotted him from down the street and ran over to intervene. His first encounter with law enforcement was at age 15, when he was stopped on his way home from high school and questioned for allegedly resembling a suspect at large in the neighbourhood. Matthew Shepherd isn’t someone who usually calls the police.
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