Two men in Washington DC were attacked in a potential hate crime by assailants who allegedly used an anti-gay slur and referenced “monkeypox,” authorities said.
Metropolitan Police Department said the pair of hateful suspects approached the victims and made derogatory comments “based on their sexual orientation” around 7 pm Sunday.
The suspects called the couple “monkeypox f—–s” and punched them several times, according to an ABC story, which cited an incident report.
The victims were rushed to nearby hospitals, police said.
Police on Tuesday announced it was “investigating this offense as potentially being motivated by hate or bias.”
One of the victims told NBC Washington that he didn’t immediately realize the extent of what happened.
“One of them comes up to me and punches me in the jaw, giving me a gash right here that needed about three stitches,” Antonio, who requested anonymity, told the outlet.
“I started noticing that I’m covered in blood. I didn’t realize how bad my lip was until other people saw it. I thought it was just, you know, a cut on my face,” the victim added to the outlet.
“The first moment, I was just angry and I was just like, ‘What kind of ignorance is this?’” Antonio recalled. But he told the outlet he was “not shocked” by the apparent motivation for the assault.
“I think it’s been a buildup over the last couple of months and years of conversations we’ve had about LGBTQ people,” I explained. “It can happen here.”
DC Major Muriel Bowser, in a statement posted on Twittersaid she was “extremely disturbed” by the possible hate crime.
“I want to send my support to the victims,” Bowser said Tuesday. “Whenever a hate crime happens in our city, it is our collective responsibility to understand the role we each play in building a safer community for every person who lives in and visits DC”
The city’s police department’s LGBT Liaison Unit is “part of” the probe, according to the mayor.
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