The two men also face charges of kidnapping and robbery. Earlier, Clinton urged Congress to pass legislation making federal prosecution of hate crimes against homosexuals easier. Shepard's beating has been widely portrayed by gay rights activists and others as a hate crime. But Price, McKinney's girlfriend, told the Denver Post that her boyfriend intended only to rob Shepard after the university student embarrassed him by flirting with him at a bar. They just wanted to rob him.
Price is the only one of the four suspects who has been released on bond.
The beating of Shepard has shed a national spotlight on Wyoming and the failure of its legislature to enact anti-hate crimes legislation. At a Sunday night vigil in Laramie, petitions urging the legislature to act were circulated among several hundred people who paid tribute to Shepard. Geringer, at a press conference in Cheyenne this morning, continued to insist that one crime, no matter how brutal, should not be the basis for hastily considered legislation. We can and will deal with this properly and on our own. Those who call for a nationally imposed remedy are misdirected.