A man hurled an anti-gay slur at another man in Lower Manhattan on September 26 before punching him twice and taking off, police said.
It was shortly after 11:30 p.m. on Saturday night when the unidentified assailant allegedly spewed the homophobic rhetoric and hit the 24-year-old victim in his face and the back of his head, cops said.
The late-night attack, which unfolded at 85 Broad Street between Pearl Street and South William Street, left the victim with a bloody nose and laceration to his lip.
The attacker bolted the scene immediately following the pair of punches — and authorities are trying to track him down. He is described by police as a white male with blonde hair, 5’9” tall, and 200 pounds. He was last seen donning a white long-sleeved shirt with black shorts and black sneakers.
The attack marked one of several violent incidents and premature deaths that have impacted the local LGBTQ community in recent weeks. Less than 24 hours after the Lower Manhattan attack, a 50-year-old man allegedly murdered his Grindr date with a machete at an apartment in the Norwood section of the Bronx.
In another horrifying case, a 51-year-old Queens man allegedly lobbed homophobic slurs at a 20-year-old Black queer man before stabbing him to death in Far Rockaway on Labor Day. Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced that James Williams was charged with two counts of second-degree murder — including one as a hate crime — in addition to criminal possession of a weapon in the third and fourth degrees and tampering with evidence.
Meanwhile, on the same day as the Far Rockaway murder, a Black transgender woman from Chicago was found dead in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. Gianna Lofton, 21, was unconscious and unresponsive in the rear of a building at 277 Rockaway Parkway when authorities arrived at the scene.
The victim’s sister, Stantasia Jones, told Gay City News that authorities told her an autopsy revealed her sister was intoxicated and accidentally fell to her death from a rooftop to a lower roof landing. However, Jones said she was not convinced that her sister’s death was an accident — and she expressed concern that her sister was raped and killed.
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