Crime & Safety
UWS Restaurant Pride Flag Defecator Arrested: Police
Fred Innocent, 45, was charged Wednesday with multiple hate crime counts for relieving himself in an UWS eatery's dining shed, NYPD said.
UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — A man accused of defecating on a gay pride flag in a tapas restaurant's outdoor dining shed on the Upper West Side was arrested on Wednesday, police said.
Fred Innocent, 45, was charged with with burglary, criminal trespassing, and three iterations of a hate crime, police said.
Innocent is accused of relieving himself inside of Buceo 95's shed on West 95th Street and Amsterdam Avenue about 1 a.m. on April 15, police said. He then used a second pride flag to clean himself, before running away up Amsterdam, police said.
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NYPD did not immediately provide more details on what was burglarized.
Innocent lives in supportive housing in Washington Heights provided by a nonprofit that focuses on New Yorkers with "serious mental illness," according to the address given by NYPD.
Find out what's happening in Upper West Sidefor free with the latest updates from Patch.
"It's definitely a punch to the guy," Nathan Nolen Edward, the general manager of the Upper West Side eatery, told the New York Post at the time. "We certainly haven't experienced anything to this degree. A defecation on a pride flag is not the norm here."
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