NYC resident says man punched him in anti-gay attack in Florida
A New York City man who works for the🍰 mayor’s office claims that he was so﷽cked in the face in an anti-gay attack while walking his dog in Florida.
Jam💮es Garcia, 49, who is gay, said he was walking his dog, Delilah, outside his second home in Fort Lauderdale at about 8 a.m. Sunday when he heard a man yelling beh🐟ind him, .
“As I was leaving the building, I heard from aꦰ distance, towards the ocean someone screaming,” said Garcia, whose LinkedIn page says he is the director of outreach for the NYC Service Office of the Mayor.
Garcia said the man approached him and asked, “Are you gay?”
“And then punched me. I didn’t respond, it just happened so quickly that I didn’t have time to react except falling down,” he said.
Garcia that his “phone was covered in blood. I couldn’t call 91꧂1. My fingers kept slipping.”
A neighbor helped him call for help,.
He said he received 10 sti𒆙tches𝐆 after the brutal attack – seven on the forehead and three above the lip.
“♛I fractured the cartilage on both sides of my nose,” Garcia told WSVN.
He told the outlet he identified his assailant after being shown pictures by police, who🌺 later arrested ex-con Maurice Antwan Charles, 36, a Fort Lauderdale resident.
Th🦂e suspect was charged with aggravated battery, but Garcia wants him to be slapped with a hate crime count.
“This is a crime of hate. Whether he was targeting me, someone else he suspected as part of the LGBTQ communi𓃲ty,” he told WSVN. “Yes, def🐼initely a crime of hate.”
According to his LinkedIn page, Garcia served in the US Air Force as a🔯 supervising purchasing agent and receไiving tech-based in New Jersey.
Charles — also known as “Big Jit” and “Big Youngster” — was convicted of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon in 2017 in Miami-Dade County, according to WPLG.
He was released from prison on Dec. 14, according 🐎to Department o🦩f Corrections records cited by the outlet.
Charles also had two felony drug arrests in 2012 and a felony 🐭robbery arrest in 2007,.
Garcia told NBC Miami that he’s sharing his story to raise awareness about hate crimes.
“It’s important that we create a mess💃age around urgency to our elected officials, that crimes like this should not be ignored, that they should be tagged as what they r𓄧eally are: hate crimes,” he said.
Garcia said he thinks of the attack every day.
“I think about the attacker when I close my eyes. I canꦉ hear his voice, so those wounds will take time to heal,” he ⛎told WSVN.
The case remains under investigation.
