The New York City Police Department is investigating a Nov. 30 attack on a woman aboard a subway in Queens as a possible hate crime.
Cell phone video footage of the incident shows the suspect, who has not been identified, hurling anti-LGBTQ epithets at a 20-year-old woman. He had apparently been set off after another woman kissed the victim on the cheek.
“I’m going to show you all, dyke,” the man, described by NYPD officials as a black male between 50 and 60 years old, can be heard saying in the clip. “Kiss her again!”
Police say the woman tried to walk away rather than continue the dispute. At that point, the suspect approached the victim from behind, punched her in the back of her head and pushed her to the floor of the subway train, where she hit her head. He then fled the train once it arrived at the next stop.
The victim was transported to a nearby hospital in Elmhurst, Queens, where she was treated for a fractured spine. Police have neither revealed the victim’s identity nor disclosed her sexuality, but said she and the woman who kissed her on the cheek were acquaintances, the New York Daily News reports.
HuffPost has reached out to the NYPD for additional comment.
The case follows the September arrest of Brandon McNamara, who allegedly beat up two men outside a popular gay nightspot in Brooklyn. McNamara, a 25-year-old who resides in Queens, could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted in the attack, which left both victims unconscious and with broken bones.
A report published by the FBI in November found that the number of hate crimes reported to the agency increased 17 percent in 2017 from the previous year. Two-thirds of the year’s victims were targeted for their race, ethnicity or ancestry, the report showed. Sexual orientation and religion also were factors, and attacks on Jewish people accounted for nearly two-thirds of religion-based hate crimes.