A person was stabbed Wednesday evening in considered one of New York Metropolis’s most vibrant homosexual neighborhoods in what police are investigating as a doable hate crime.
The 44-year-old man was strolling alongside a rainbow-flag-lined avenue in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen when a bunch of males made an anti-gay comment towards him. When the sufferer confronted the boys, two of them punched him within the face and one other man stabbed him within the leg, a spokesperson for the New York Metropolis Police Division stated Thursday.
Authorities stated the sufferer was hospitalized in steady situation, whereas the suspects stay at giant.
New York Metropolis Council Member Erik Bottcher, who’s homosexual and whose district contains Hell’s Kitchen, stated he’s “enraged” by the assault.
“New York Metropolis is a logo of range and freedom all through the world, and Hell’s Kitchen is a haven for the LGBTQ+ group, and we’ll all the time rise up in opposition to hate of all types,” Bottcher stated in a press release. “We won’t be intimidated.”
The stabbing Wednesday is amongst a string of violent assaults in opposition to LGBTQ folks, venues and symbols in New York Metropolis — arguably the birthplace of the fashionable LGBTQ rights motion — in latest months.
In February, a lady set a Manhattan restaurant’s rainbow pleasure flag on hearth, in what police are additionally investigating as a doable anti-LGBTQ hate crime. Final month, right-wing protesters flocked to a Drag Story Hour occasion — the place drag performers learn youngsters’s books to youngsters and their households — at Manhattan’s LGBTQ group middle.
And on Monday, a number of suspects have been arraigned in reference to a string of drug-facilitated robberies that left two homosexual males useless. Most of the victims, together with the 2 who died, have been focused at or simply outdoors homosexual bars in Hell’s Kitchen. Authorities, nevertheless, consider the suspects focused the victims primarily for monetary acquire, although the NYPD Hate Crimes Job Power is aiding within the investigation.