survivors

The Brutal Brooklyn Gay Bashing Of Barie Shortell

At left is what Williamsburg resident Barie Shortell usually looks like. At right is what he looked like after his Feb. 22 neighborhood gay bashing, which left him with a broken nose, jaw, eye sockets, and facial bones — and 9.5 hours of corrective surgery. Shortell, writes a friend, was “attacked and on the way home one evening. He was not robbed, but the people attacking him did mock him with anti-gay taunts before they attacked him…breaking his nose, jaw and eye socket. The attack has been deemed a hate crime.” Shortell, like millions of Americans, does not have health insurance, which means he’s on the hook for the nightmarish hospital bill, so some friends have organized a fundraiser (called, ahem, “The Gay Bash”) for him next Wednesday in Brooklyn. Normally we don’t post about every local community’s efforts to raise cash (the task would prove impossible), but HOLY FUCK THIS IS JUST RIDICULOUS, and it is a sad world when the best we can say after an attack like Barrie’s is that “at least” it didn’t turn into this.

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