Last summer, Timothy Brownell, 25, allegedly attacked three local musicians with a knife while hurdling antigay slurs.
This week, his mother took the stand at his assault trial to explain that no, her son isn’t antigay — and supports her own same-sex relationship.
Brownell is currently facing assault charges after attacking musicians Alex Lyman, Blake Abbey and Weston Richmond outside a bar in the early hours of June 22, 2015.
Prosecutors claim Brownell was uttering homophobic slurs during the attack, which left one man with a broken hand and another with a stab wound in the side that narrowly missed his spleen.
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Police investigated the attack as a hate crime, because Brownell apparently claimed on social media that he targeted the men because they were wearing skinny jeans.
In a brief testimony, Lori Brownell testified that her son has never been uneasy about her own same-sex relationship, and that he often refers to his mother’s partner as his “second mom.”
“You’ve heard allegations of what Tim was said to have said,” said Timothy Brownell’s defense counsel, Leslie Ramos. “Do you believe Tim to be homophobic?”
“No,” she responded, claiming she wouldn’t be standing before a judge and jury if she thought otherwise.
Last year, Lori Brownell told The Sacremento Bee that her son suffered from post-traumatic stress connected to his Afghanistan tour, and that that’s what probably spurred the attack.
h/t: The Sacramento Bee
