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Gay bashing does still happen, contrary to misconceptions...
See, this is why I don't go to uptown gay bars.
The last line is indeed the question...
3 busted in gay attack
E. Side victim tells how he survived vicious beating
By NICOLE BODE, ALICE McQUILLAN and GREG GITTRICH
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Cardiac tech Raymond Spreng of upper East Side wears bruises from run-in yesterday with anti-gay attackers. Three suspects are in custody.
Raymond Spreng first noticed the three men behind him when he turned down E. 86th St - but thinks they had been stalking him for several blocks, ever since he left an upper East Side gay bar.
It was just after 4 o'clock yesterday morning, and Spreng, a cardiac technician, headed quickly toward East End Ave.
He hoped the well-lit sidewalks around Gracie Mansion would protect him.
But the rowdy trio didn't turn back.
They charged him, screaming an anti-gay slur as they attacked him, Spreng said in an interview with the Daily News yesterday.
"I'm going to kill you, f-----," Spreng said he remembered one of the men saying.
They yelled the anti-gay slur repeatedly as they mercilessly beat the 53-year-old Spreng to the ground and slammed a discarded bicycle frame against his head, according to police sources.
For 10 long minutes, Spreng battled his attackers just off East End Ave. All along, he yelled for help.
On the ground, he did the best he could to cover his face as they pummeled him.
Blood gushed from a gash in Spreng's forehead, poured over his face and soaked the sweater under his black leather jacket.
No one was nearby, and Spreng realized he'd have to fight back if he was going to survive. At one point he defiantly told the men: "I'll make sure you go to jail."
Somehow he managed to get to his feet. He recalled that he then began wiping and literally hurling handfuls of his blood onto the men.
"I wanted to get my blood on them for identification - to mark them," he said. "I went after them. ... That was the only thing I could defend myself with - my blood, that they drew."
Finally Spreng heard "the most beautiful sound ever" - a police siren.
His alleged attackers - Oscar Afre, 22; Christopher Pan, 26, and Sucjovic Mirsad, 22, all of Queens - were nabbed at the scene and charged with first-degree assault.
Spreng was rushed to Weill Cornell Medical Center, where he was treated for deep cuts and bruises.
Reacting to hatred
He spoke to The News later from his home.
"I'm outraged that this hatred is still going on," Spreng said. "And for what? I could have been killed. ... I would like them to be punished. I also would like them to really understand what they did."
Spreng said he made the short walk several times from the Tool Box, a bar on Second Ave. near 91st St., to his apartment a few blocks away.
"I never ever thought that it was going to happen to me," he said.
Only seconds before the attack, Spreng said he had turned to face the charging men.
Raising his hands, he said he told them: "I don't want any trouble from you."
But, according to Spreng, the smallest of his attackers yelled: "You don't want any trouble from me. I'm going to give you trouble."
In 2001, there were 547 anti-gay crimes in the city, down from 616 in 2000, according to the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project. But the group said the number of assaults with weapons rose 20% over the same period.
In Queens, Afre's mother cried when told that her son had been arrested.
"We're not against gays," Lidia Afre, 59, said sitting under a framed photo of Jesus in the family's Sunnyside apartment. "I hope this guy gets better."
She then said of her jailed son: "How can he be so stupid?"
E. Side victim tells how he survived vicious beating
By NICOLE BODE, ALICE McQUILLAN and GREG GITTRICH
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Cardiac tech Raymond Spreng of upper East Side wears bruises from run-in yesterday with anti-gay attackers. Three suspects are in custody.
Raymond Spreng first noticed the three men behind him when he turned down E. 86th St - but thinks they had been stalking him for several blocks, ever since he left an upper East Side gay bar.
It was just after 4 o'clock yesterday morning, and Spreng, a cardiac technician, headed quickly toward East End Ave.
He hoped the well-lit sidewalks around Gracie Mansion would protect him.
But the rowdy trio didn't turn back.
They charged him, screaming an anti-gay slur as they attacked him, Spreng said in an interview with the Daily News yesterday.
"I'm going to kill you, f-----," Spreng said he remembered one of the men saying.
They yelled the anti-gay slur repeatedly as they mercilessly beat the 53-year-old Spreng to the ground and slammed a discarded bicycle frame against his head, according to police sources.
For 10 long minutes, Spreng battled his attackers just off East End Ave. All along, he yelled for help.
On the ground, he did the best he could to cover his face as they pummeled him.
Blood gushed from a gash in Spreng's forehead, poured over his face and soaked the sweater under his black leather jacket.
No one was nearby, and Spreng realized he'd have to fight back if he was going to survive. At one point he defiantly told the men: "I'll make sure you go to jail."
Somehow he managed to get to his feet. He recalled that he then began wiping and literally hurling handfuls of his blood onto the men.
"I wanted to get my blood on them for identification - to mark them," he said. "I went after them. ... That was the only thing I could defend myself with - my blood, that they drew."
Finally Spreng heard "the most beautiful sound ever" - a police siren.
His alleged attackers - Oscar Afre, 22; Christopher Pan, 26, and Sucjovic Mirsad, 22, all of Queens - were nabbed at the scene and charged with first-degree assault.
Spreng was rushed to Weill Cornell Medical Center, where he was treated for deep cuts and bruises.
Reacting to hatred
He spoke to The News later from his home.
"I'm outraged that this hatred is still going on," Spreng said. "And for what? I could have been killed. ... I would like them to be punished. I also would like them to really understand what they did."
Spreng said he made the short walk several times from the Tool Box, a bar on Second Ave. near 91st St., to his apartment a few blocks away.
"I never ever thought that it was going to happen to me," he said.
Only seconds before the attack, Spreng said he had turned to face the charging men.
Raising his hands, he said he told them: "I don't want any trouble from you."
But, according to Spreng, the smallest of his attackers yelled: "You don't want any trouble from me. I'm going to give you trouble."
In 2001, there were 547 anti-gay crimes in the city, down from 616 in 2000, according to the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project. But the group said the number of assaults with weapons rose 20% over the same period.
In Queens, Afre's mother cried when told that her son had been arrested.
"We're not against gays," Lidia Afre, 59, said sitting under a framed photo of Jesus in the family's Sunnyside apartment. "I hope this guy gets better."
She then said of her jailed son: "How can he be so stupid?"
most of it is just jokes that some people take the wrong way. i like playing the comical non-PC guy sometimes.
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