Even as hundreds of New Yorkers marched in a second consecutive peace rally over the past two days, another gay man has become the sixth victim in a series of homophobic attacks that has plagued the city during recent weeks.
“Dan Contarino (pictured), a former promoter of Shampoo Nightclub’s Shaft Fridays, was jumped last night at Avenue D & 4th Street,” writes Bruce Yelk, a close friend of Contarino’s, on his blog Nightlife Gay. Yelk also reports witnesses saying the male assailant yelled “faggot” as he kicked and beat Contarino.
The hate crime took place the same night community and political leaders joined hundreds of upset New Yorkers to march in a peaceful demonstration against the recent spate of anti-gay violence. Since the beginning of the month, there have been a total of six reported attacks, with one resulting in a fatality.
The New York City Anti-Violence Project will hold a Community Safety Night on Friday, May 24 to raise awareness and provide people with information and safety tips. The meetings will continue each Friday through June. AVP encourages you to report any violence you experience or witness to its free and confidential 24-hour bilingual (English/Spanish) hotline at 212-714-1141.
UPDATE:
Early this morning Contarino tweeted a message to his followers about the incident, saying that his injuries required minor surgery.
THANKS FOR CALLS…. GAY BASHED LAST NITE…. back from small surgery…. CHEST XRAYS THIS AM…. suspect still… fb.me/28tZ96d4x
— Dan Contarino (@dancontarino) May 21, 2013
gppm1103
Time to get the whistles out again like we had in the ’80’s in San Francisco!
jstepp88
I had a friend in NYC that got attacked this month as well. He ended up getting stitches.
mpwaite
Do the Pink Panthers or berets still exist??? It’s time that WE as a community took up the charge to take care of ourselves and start patrolling.
HeroQueero
It’s time to use all of our powers to find these hate groups and stop them. I see a pattern here. These attacks are being directed towards public figures in the gay community: an activist, a club owner, even a porn star, all well-known and out of the closet. This would also suggest that the perpetrators of these attacks are organized and may even consider themselves a group or club that is an enemy of homosexuality. If you live in New York, it’s important that you carry with you a video camera or camera phone so that you can be prepared to capture any assailants on film. Also, we need to communicate all information that we receive with one another so that we can learn everything we can about those who are attacking innocent civilians. We can do this. Look at everything we’ve overcome already. Love > Fear.
Scott Johansen
Here’s what happened with NY LGBT and many LGBT throughout the country…they got marriage equality and then they didn’t give a darn about any other issue relating to LGBT causes. As soon as marriage equality passed in NY…you would think all issues concerning LGBT were cured. The fact is, you can’t walk in NYC being identifiably gay without being called horrific names threatened to be attacked..or flat out attacked. The numbers on anti gay hate crimes in NYC and how they dramatically went up recently aren’t even accurate. For every homophobic crime in the city that gets reported, there’s 20 that don’t! Ask around…everyone will either have a personal story of being threatened or attacked in the city for being LGBT or know of someone who was, and it went unreported. Which is a shame. But the point is..there is a HUGE…and I mean HUGE issue with homophobia in the streets of NYC, and I say this from first hand experience.
It’s ugly, violent, and brutal. And it’s partially due to Catholicism, and a machismo mentality. But beyond that, our LGBT leaders have done NOTHING to combat and challenge or even acknowledge it. NOTHING.
Marriage was passed in NY and LGBT leaders and groups just disappeared and pretended we live in a post homophobic society and city.
Time to get back to our grass roots and demand justice, show visibility, show strength, become galvanized and be a community again.
NotStr8Acting
People have this idea that NYC is this amazingly gay friendly city….bull. That’s just the cities tourism department selling you on that. Sure every corner of the country has bigots, but I left NYC because of the insane amount of homophobia. Something the LGBT and LGBT oriented groups pretend isn’t an issue, and until now, would get defensive if you even suggested something needed to be done to address it and change the mental shift of homophobia in a city where LGBT contribute a shiiit load!
A common theme in all the attacks here is young Hispanic men doing the attacking. So far, 16 Hispanic men altogether in all 7 of these crimes. From my personal experience, Puerto Rican and Dominican men are not having any of the gay thing and will let you know it. As someone who is biracial, I almost felt they took more issue and got more militant over seeing gay men of color. Expect no one to say or do anything, or talk to these communities, cuz for some reason or another gays in NYC are more concerned about parties and events then activism.
By the way, I myself was attacked twice in the city my first week there all for being gay and walking down the sidewalk and a bunch of thugs screaming anti gay slurs. When I tried walking away, they attempted to beat the crap out of me. Oh, and this is in broad daylight, with not a single soul coming to my aid. That’s what happens when we as a community don’t demand respect.
My heart and thoughts are with all the victims.
dab822
the guys that hang out in my neighborhood get called names all the time. my date and i did recently. we were singled out more because we looked like guppy types more than the heavy drags that run around here. it’s a party area with a lot of latino gay bars in queens nyc
Ihave ajob
I live in New England, I love it up here, being gay growing up here has been great, but, Yes, the hatred is phenomenal. Like, I do not hide the fact that I am gay, but maybe I mask it. I was once chased by a group of straight guys thinking they would trap and kill me and my friends. Funny thing, the aggressors were just probably gays themselves. They could not stand to see us so proud of our own selves, to walk past them laughing and being free…..
You can’t make a friend out of everybody but you can show everyone respect, Stay to yourselves. Just show them that you are more than your sexuality. I have had friends that hated blacks and gays and would spit on the ground, as I walked past. Bigots looking like they want to hurt me, lol, the only way to fight that is stand strong and be kind. Be better than them and fight hard for rationality.
BayAreaHomo
Sadly, “gun control” means that the only people armed on the streets are those who break the law and harm LGBTs.
A few dead would-be bashers would do a lot to shut down this latest wave of violence. These people are cowards, and the prospect of being shot dead in an attack would be a powerful deterrent.
Sadly, our political leaders have ensured that we’re sitting ducks, while the criminals who attack us are armed to the teeth. We’ll keep dying until that’s changed, and all the “education” and “activism” in the world won’t solve the problem.
NotStr8Acting
@Ihave ajob: Well, if you’re masking being gay then you’re not really fighting for rationality, or really practicing what you preach about being strong. The moment our narrative as a community EVER flirts with “tone done being gay” is the moment we’re back in 1964 and hiding in a dark closet. Gay people contribute wayyy too much to society to leave their door every morning and think “I better not come off too gay” because the moment THAT’S your mentality is the moment the bigots won. And being gay is part of who I am. I’m indeed proud of it. If I’m proud of my ethnicity, my family, my college degree, all of which are part of me, then I also am proud of my partner, and the gay community with fantastic history that I belong to. I won’t mask it, or say it doesn’t define me, because who I love does. These bigots targeting us the manner they do is to terrorize the community and send a message hoping to get us to “mask who we are” because they don’t like gays. The moment we give in, bigotry won and bigotry remains. I refuse. I’m gay, and you want to fight me for being gay? let’s dance! but I won’t be a full human if I’m not fully true to myself. That may include holding my partners hand, or wearing a flamboyant shirt, or having many not so str8 acting moments…but I own it and am true to me!
Jeton Ademaj
its time for National “Shall-Issue” Concealed-Carry Legislation…enough with NY’s bull. if you have no criminal record, no mental-health issues and nothing otherwise disqualifying, you SHALL BE ISSUED a concealed-carry handgun permit good throughout the USA.
let the GOP prove it’s good for something.
FLOGGERDADNYC
Screw the whistles, we need to get out the baseball bats! When are we going to come to the reality, that holding up a daisy will not save us? If any of you are leaving a club late at night, do it with a group, and please get a cab together!!!
d1919v
time for me to carry a taser. gotta protect yourselves fellas.