Late Saturday night, so late it was actually early Sunday morning, Marquis Devereaux of the Bronx sat by the peaceful water where the Westchester Creek meets the East River, and looked out from his guarded, gated community at Clason Point. That’s when the out event planner heard a voice say, “We’re not going to do any of that boyfriend stuff around here.”
He turned, startled, and began to walk away from the man, who was joined by another, reported the New York Daily News. Devereaux, 39, was jumped by one of the men and slashed in the left armpit with a silver knife. The other man, he told police, hurled gay slurs, including “homo,” “fag” and “bumbaclot,” which is word Jamaicans use to mean a rag used as toilet paper, and is also commonly used as a swear word.
The men ran off and police have made no arrests; they suspect they may have followed Devereaux into his complex on foot. Fortunately for detectives, two men matching their description walked past a surveillance camera near the gated community in Soundview, and police released video from that camera to WABC-TV, in hopes someone might recognize them.
Devereaux told the newspaper security around his complex has been beefed-up since the weekend incident.
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But this is not the first time he’s been targeted; his former superintendent mocked his sexuality and stabbed him in the leg in 2009, and in 2011 was sentenced to three years for that attack.
“This has happened to me twice and the only thing I’m guilty of is being gay a week after Pride,” Devereaux told the Daily News Tuesday. “”What is it that I’m doing it wrong?”
Click here to watch a video report on the incident containing the surveillance video.
