Jul 1, 2009 8:31 pm US/Eastern
Gay Man Viciously Attacked On Upper East Side
Police Believe Beating May Have Been Bias Attack; Suspects Yelled Anti-Gay Slurs
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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Joseph Holladay, 36, was viciously attacked on Manhattan's Upper East Side. He said his attackers yelled anti-gay slurs as they beat him.
CBS
Police are investigating a possible bias attack in Manhattan's Upper East Side after a 36-year-old man says he was beaten unconscious by men yelling anti-gay slurs.
Joseph Holladay, who is originally from New York, but now lives in Boston, was back visiting friends last weekend when he stepped outside for a cigarette early Saturday morning around 4:15 outside 529 E. 85th Street. That's where he told police he was struck in the head with a silver gun, robbed, and left unconscious. Holladay says the suspects shouted an anti-gay slur while they attacked him. Witnesses tell police that five or six young men were seen running away from where the attack happened.
"They were calling me fa**ot and started to beat me. They beat me very hard, and unconscious," he told CBS 2.
Holladay's friend, John Jerome, described what he came outside to see immediately afterward.
"I pushed the door open, he was laying right there; with his head down, face down, feet stretched out. He wasn't moving, laying in a pool of blood, like you see in the movies," said Jerome. "This was real! This was not [the movies]. It was trickling, it was starting to run. And I'm going, 'Joseph! Joseph! Talk to me!'"
Holladay told CBS 2 he did not provoke the suspects.
"I thought he was dead," said Jerome. "I had my phone and I couldn't even dial 911. All I could do was start ringing buzzers."
Police have launched a manhunt for the assailants and revealed police sketches of the suspects.
"We characterize this as a possible bias crime. It's being investigated by our hate crimes task force," said NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly.
Investigators may have even more, including surveillance video from a camera over the doorway where it happened, and other cameras nearby.
"This is about treating people as you want to be treated. It's the golden rule," said Holladay. To highlight that some people forgot that golden rule, Holladay appeared earlier in the day at the Gay & Lesbian Anti-violence Project because what happened to him is on the rise across the country. The Project says Holladay was one of many attacked last weekend because they were gay as the Gay Pride Parade was being held in Manhattan.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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