Third assault on gay man in Manhattan

[hrmjustin]

NEW YORK (WABC) -- There have been a series of attacks against gay men in Manhattan. There have been three of them in a week. The latest victim Eyewitness News learned about was coming out of "Pieces", a bar on Christopher Street on May 8th. He was hailing a cab when he was assaulted by two men who were yelling gay slurs. He was not seriously hurt. But Nick Porto wasn't quite so lucky.

Porto and his partner Kevin Atkins were attacked outside Madison Square Garden. Police are looking for eight men in that attack.

And on Friday morning, two gay men were attacked as they were going into "Space Billiards Hall" on W. 32nd Street. Asllan Berisha and Brian Ramirez were charged with a hate crime in that assault, but again police are looking for more men who might have acted with them.

The three incidents have left the gay community wondering what happened to the progress it seemed like they were making recently. Police say the attacks do not appear to be related

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local/new_york&id=9101295

This last one is a few blocks from my church. Is it open season on us now?

[graham4anything]

1. Horrible, simply horrible. Should be federal and charged as hate crimes

and if the 2nd and 3rd are not related to the first and are copycats, that is almost
worse than the 1st.

and I wonder if it's the normal hate radio with their code words from those extremists

[hrmjustin]

2. It is very scary.

I hope they catch all the SOB's that did these crimes.