April 24, 2013 By Bill Parry and Christian Murray
Two memorial services will be held for Lou Rispoli next month.
The longtime Woodside resident, who was killed following a brutal attack last October on 43rd Avenue, will be remembered on May 3 at the Greenwich House Music School at 46 Barrow Street in Manhattan. There will be a concert and candlelight vigil in his honor.
The service will begin at 8 pm.
The event is being co-sponsored by the NYC Anti-Violence Project, the LGBT Center and GLAAD.
In addition, on May 11, Rispoli’s family and friends will hold a memorial service at the Fourth Universalist Society on the Upper West Side.
There have been no new developments in solving the case, since the release of two sketches of the possible perpetrators in January.
Mark Horn, who has acted as a family spokesman, said he believes the case is no longer high on the police’s priority list.
“I’m really angry that there has been no progress in the case,” Horn said. “There have been no updates from the 108th Precinct.” He expressed frustration that the computers that were taken from the Rispoli household were never returned.
Rispoli, a 62-year-old married gay man, went out just before midnight Friday Oct. 19 and sometime after 2:00am on Saturday, Oct. 20, he allegedly arrived at 42nd St. and 43rd Ave in a white sports car with three other men.
The men got out of the car and two of the passengers walked with Rispoli toward 41-00 43rd Avenue. He was struck in the back of the head with a blunt object, which killed him 5 days later.
While the police initially arrived on the scene, crime-scene detectives didn’t show up for 36 hours.
Horn is upset that the police department’s internal review of the delay has apparently gone nowhere. “We’ve never heard anything about that,” he said.
While his anger at the 108th Precinct is not new, his criticism of Democratic Mayoral Candidate Christine Quinn is. “I’m disappointed with the City Council speaker,” Horn said. “She was supposed to show at the press conference and the candlelight vigil (Nov. 17) last year. I think she failed to bring pressure to the investigation.”
Rispoli was an administrator at Greenwich House and a music instructor at the school.
Danyal Lawson, the victim’s husband, has had a tough time of it recently. “He’s still in mourning,” Horn said.
Lawson and Rispoli had been married a year– but had lived together for 32 years.
