But If They Were Gay Drug Dealers . . .

. . . they would have been protected and the righteous crowd dispersed with tear gas:

Police in Inuvik had to escort eight men out of the town last weekend after a mob threatened to remove the group from the community by force.

Police say they defused a potentially violent situation when about 80 angry, drunk local residents tried to run the men out of town early Sunday morning.

Witnesses say the crowd gathered in front of a hotel on Inuvik's main street at about 2 a.m., just after the bars closed. Inuvik is a town of about 3,500 in the Mackenzie Delta, about 1,100 kilometres northwest of Yellowknife.

People chanted and honked their horns, demanding that eight men staying at the hotel leave town immediately.

The crowd reportedly accused the men of being drug dealers associated with organized crime. . .

[Staff Sgt. Sid Gray of the Inuvik RCMP] admits that some of the eight men who were in hotel are known to be involved with organized crime, but says none of them had broken any laws. The men were from Vancouver and Whitehorse.

Link.