Street preacher broke a wrestling commentator’s leg after he stood up to his hate. Now he claims he acted in ‘self-defence’
Dorre Love claims he was “assaulted” and “robbed” by the man whose leg he allegedly broke. (Dorre Love/ Facebook)
A homophobic street preacher has claimed he was the victim of “assault” and “armed robbery”, after he was accused of “purposely” breaking the leg of a queer ally who stood up to him.
Justin Morissette, the host of Wrestle Central on SportsNet and an LGBT+ ally, will live with metal plates in his leg for the rest of his life after he was assaulted by the anti-LGBT+ street preachers.
He told City News 1130 that he came across the two men while walking to meet a date in Vancouver’s West End, home to the city’s gay village.
The neighbourhood has in recent months seen street preachers persistently spewing “bigotry and religious hatred toward the gay community”, said Morissette, using “obscenely loud PA systems”.
But on the evening of Saturday, 22 August, the sports host had had enough.
He said: “It happened to be me who stepped up and said: ‘You are not welcome in this community to be saying these things. Pack your things and go somewhere else.'”
After the men refused to leave, Morissette said, he grabbed a microphone from one, who in return wrenched his leg against his “in a judo-style takedown… until my tibia and fibula snapped, broke and my knee dislocated”.
Justin Morissette had to undergo surgery after being attacked. (Justin Morrisette)
“He absolutely 1,000 per cent knew that that was going to happen when he did that, this was a malicious intentional break of my leg,” he added.
Homophobic street preacher Dorre Love was one of two men arrested for the aggravated assault of Morissette, but the anti-LGBT+ Christian is now claiming that he was in fact the victim.
In a YouTube livestream on Monday, 24 August, Love claimed that he was “assaulted”, “robbed” and “beat up” by Morissette.
He told his followers: “I was assaulted. A gentleman that was 300 pounds… at least 200 pounds bigger than me took my mic out of my hand and tried to get away with it. We retrieved the mic back.
“I can’t say too much because it’s still an open case, but the police ended up arresting the Christians.”
He continued: “I looked up the Canadian law today, the man assaulted me, and it says it’s armed robbery and assault for someone to take a mic out of my hand.
“I had the mic, and I’m skinny. You can tell, people have been like: ‘Oh, you’ve been losing weight.’ Yeah, I’m a small dude. This dude was about 250 pounds, I weigh about 170.
“He forcefully snatched the mic out of my hand and pushed me out the way. That’s assault and robbery, he was charged with nothing!”
Love said he had been charged with “aggravated assault, mischief and causing a disturbance”, and exclaimed: “They banned me from the beach! I’m not allowed to go to the English Bay, Sunset Bay and to the gay neighbourhood!”
In the video, the homophobic preacher also appealed for donations via PayPal and begged “Christian lawyers” to come to his aid.
My leg is super fucked up, and that sucks. But the violent man who did this to me would have done it, or possibly much worse to someone else down the line had he not been arrested tonight. I have prevented harm to someone I will never know, and they won’t know I did it either.— Justin Morissette ?? (@JustinMoris) August 23, 2020
Sharing his experience on Twitter, Morrisette said he was glad to have “prevented harm to someone I will never know”.
“The violent man who did this to me would have done it, or possibly much worse to someone else down the line had he not been arrested tonight,” he continued.
“I am in excruciating pain and my knee is incredibly mangled. But I would feel worse if I knew I saw that and just went home and minded my own business. Don’t let the b*****ds win.”
