New York may be one of the nation’s most progressive cities when it comes to LGBT life. Sadly, that doesn’t mean that it’s always safe for LGBT people in the Big Apple. This past weekend, a Harlem resident was gunned down in Greenwich Village in an “anti-gay hate crime” that has sent shock waves through New York.
According to the Associated Press, the gunman, 33-year-old Elliot Morales and two others were harassing Mark Carson, a 32-year-old Harlem resident, hurling anti-gay slurs as they followed him down Sixth Avenue.
Reportedly, the trio followed Carson and his companion to Eighth Street where things went from bad to horrific when Morales asked the men if they were together, to which they replied yes. Morales asked the men, “Do you want to die here?” and then pulled a revolver on them, firing one shot into Carson’s cheek.
Carson was pronounced dead at Beth Israel Hospital and Morales was arrested on the street shortly afterward.
Shortly before the shooting, Morales had run into Carson and a friend near a 99 Cent Pizza and hurled anti-gay slurs at them. Minutes before the shooting, Morales had also been spotted urinating outside an upscale restaurant and then later went inside and made anti-gay remarks to the bartender before brandishing his revolver and threatening to shoot him if he called the police.
Morales has now been charged with murder as a hate crime, criminal possession of a weapon and menacing.
The shooting, which is nothing short of a ridiculously unnecessary and horrible act of violence, is sadly, just the latest and deadliest attack in a rising trend of bias attacks against New York gay men.
Hopefully, justice will be served and no other citizens will be harassed or die over senseless hate.
Tragically, this isn’t the first time LGBT people have been targeted in hate crimes. Check out some other famous hate crimes below. –nicholas robinson
