Aborn: Investigate East Side Attack as a Potential Hate Crime.
Man reportedly attacked this weekend and called anti-gay epithets. DA candidate Richard Aborn condemns attack, presses NYPD to investigate as potential hate crime, which could enhance penalties.
NEW YORK- In response to Saturday’s brutal attack on Joe Holladay who was assaulted by a group of men who reportedly shouted anti-gay slurs, Richard Aborn, candidate for district attorney, today condemned the attack and called on the NYPD to investigate the incident as a potential hate crime.
"I condemn this cowardly act of brutality. The circumstances suggest this may be a bias crime, which would be an attack on all of us,” Aborn said. “I am calling on the NYPD to investigate the incident as a potential hate crime, with the possibility for enhanced penalties.”
"As District Attorney, I will establish a hate crimes bureau so that New York's Hate Crime laws fully protect members of the LGBT community who are singled out for bias crimes, and, in particular, make sure that vulnerable gay youths and others have a safe harbor where they can seek protection of the law," said Aborn.
According to reports, Holladay walked out of an apartment on East 85th Street between York and East End Avenues, where he's been staying, at about 4 a.m. to smoke a cigarette on the sidewalk, and five or six young men swarmed him.
Holladay's friend, Jerome John, heard noise and came downstairs to find him immobilized in a pool of blood. In addition, neighbors reported that they saw a group of five or six young white men outside the building just before the incident, and heard anti gay epithets before seeing the young men pile into a car and drive away.
According to the New York State Statute on Bias Related Crimes, a hate crime is committed when a person commits a "specified offense," such as murder, assault, kidnapping, arson, or other crimes against an individual because of his or her race, color, national origin, ancestry, gender, age, disability, religion or religious practice or sexual orientation. The law enhances penalties by raising the specified offense one category higher when it is a misdemeanor or a class C, D, or E felony.
Aborn noted that reported hate crimes committed against individuals because of their sexual orientation increased in 2007 to 1,265, the highest level in five years. Of the hate crimes reported in 2007, the proportion committed against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals rose to 16.6 percent, also the highest level in five years (according to the last year for which FBI statistics are available).
