Eugene Lovendusky, a founder of the grassroots direct-action group Queer Rising, was attacked early Saturday morning after leaving a Times Square nightclub with two others, the New York Post reported.
Lovendusky, 28, told the Post that a group of teenagers approached them and yelled anti-gay slurs. One teen, Manuel Riquelme, 19, allegedly punched Lovendusky in the face and repeated his threat when one of the victim’s friends moved to help him.
Police later located Riquelme at a pizzeria a few blocks away, and arrested him on suspicion of assault as a hate crime and harassment. According to the Post, he was arraigned on a charge of second-degree aggravated harassment, a class A misdemeanor.
Just last weekend, more than a thousand LGBT advocates protested the recent pattern of bias-motivated assaults in the city. Approximately six attacks have occurred within the last six weeks. The most serious incident resulted in the murder of Mark Carson, 32, in the West Village on May 18.
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