Originally posted: July 21, 2008, 1:28 p.m
Updated: July 24, 2008, 11:50 p.m.
ANDERSON, S.C. — On July 22, the Anderson County Sheriff’s Department charged an 18-year-old gay man with filing a false police report after he accused his father of assault.
In two reports filed July 16, Dwight Clark Ables accused his father of chasing him, punching him and hitting him with a bat after a disagreement over the son’s attendance at a gay pride festival, news reports in the LGBT media spread across the nation.
According to the reports, the teen accused his father of yelling, cursing and swinging a bat at him when he returned home Sun., July 13 after attending a gay pride festival. The teen also said his father chased him from the home.
On the morning of July 16, the teen said he had returned home for a change of clothes. He accused his father of punching him.
The teen claimed in the reports, filed by Deputy S.C. Weymouth, that his father “has a problem with him being gay and that is why he hit him with the baseball bat Sunday.”
“After conducting a thorough investigation and the lack of any forensic evidence to support the allegation of the assault, Dwight Clark Ables has been charged with 1 count of Filing a False Police report. He turned himself in today at the Anderson County Sheriff’s office,” read a press release from the Department’s Public Information Officer Suzanne Griffin.
Ables is currently being held at the Anderson County Detention Center where he awaits a bond hearing.