The New York Police Department is seeking the public’s assistance in identifying a suspect in an assault on a 33-year-old man in the lobby on his apartment building on Washington Avenue, near Empire Boulevard, in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn.
The NYPD has released surveillance video of a man leaving the apartment building at the time of the incident, in the late morning on October 13.
According to police, the suspect followed the victim, Mitch Pope, into the building’s lobby, striking him with a hammer while shouting anti-gay slurs at him. Police said the assailant stole Pope’s cell phone.
The case is being is being investigaged by the NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force.
Pope told WCBS News that he was “afraid for his life” and began to scream. He described the man as a “heavier guy, black with a scruffy beard. He had a skully on, and a brown hoodie.”
The surveillance video, however, shows a man with a different type of hat.
Pope was taken to Methodist Hospital in Park Slope, where he received five staple stiches for the injuries to his head.
The incident follows two anti-LGBT attacks in Bushwick, one of which led to three arrests.
Members of the public with information related to the Crown Heights case can call 1-800-577-TIPS.
