Arrest Made In Anti-Gay Hate Crime Stab: Police

HELL'S KITCHEN, NY — A minor was arrested a month after a group stabbed a man in Hell's Kitchen after yelling anti-gay slurs, police said.

On Thursday, NYPD officers arrested a 17-year-old boy in the Lower East Side and charged him with three counts of hate crime assault, two counts of assault, hate crime aggravated harassment and criminal possession of a weapon.

A month earlier on April 5 at about 11:30 p.m., a 44-year-old victim was attacked by a group of seven people as he walked by a wine shop on West 44th Street and 10th Avenue about 11:30 pm, police said.

According to officials at the time, the group walked up to the victim as he stood on the corner and started to make derogatory comments about his sexual orientation, said James Essig, the NYPD's Chief of Detectives in a press conference following the attack."They then punch, kick and stab him,” he said.

Police later released surveillance stills of people suspected to be connected to the attack.

Local elected officials were quick to condemn the hate crimes in a rising climate of anti-gay political action and violence.

“Hell’s Kitchen is a haven for the LGBTQ+ community, and we will always stand up against hate of all kinds,” said City Council Member Erik Bottcher, who himself has been the target of hate groups during his first year in office.

"Hate crimes are among the most pernicious forms of crime because they are intended to strike fear into entire communities," Bottcher said in a statement. "We will not be cowed, we will not be intimidated."

State Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal said that the attack was "another example of the type of vicious and hateful attacks on LGBTQ people that are on the rise across our country," adding that "we must stand strong against this hatred and outrageous attempts at intimidation."

The rise in anti-LGBTQ violence comes as "surprising to no one," Hoylman-Sigal said in his statement, which made the connection to what he described as a surge in "inflammatory rhetoric and hate speech directed at the LGBTQ community by right-wing officials and media personalities."

Police are still looking for others involved in the April 5 attack.

Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).