a hate crime," he said.

He said he arrived alone at the school to meet his friends and he was taunted by seven people he didn't know.

He said the strangers hit and kicked him, and took his wallet and iPhone. He said the five friends he'd come to meet saw he was being beaten and three ran to his aid as the others went for help.

When deputies arrived at the school, only the teen's friends were still there. The teen left to seek help at a nearby home, and the suspected gang members had run off.

The teen was bruised and had minor injuries to his face and head when he returned to the scene with his mother.

"I told the cops, 'They beat me because I'm gay,' " he said."The cops refused to say it was a hate crime because I wasn't the only one who was beaten up."

His mother said the officers appeared to regard the incident as a scuffle among teens.

She said, "I turned and said, 'I want to report a hate crime.'"

Monday evening, she told the City Council that authorities are passing off a serious crime as a teen fight.

"We take hate crimes very seriously," said Sackett, who met with Land's family at their home Wednesday.

However, he said, the deputies who responded and spoke to Land's son's friends heard conflicting accounts of what started the violence, and heard no mention of anti-gay slurs until Land arrived.

Land said Wednesday that she and her son and the rest of her family had a mostly congenial conversation