A man who is too ashamed of his face to leave his apartment after he was beaten up last week in New York City said that he has been attacked for being gay in New York City so many times that he’s fleeing the city.
He claims he was the victim of an anti-gay hate crime. Worse, he alleges that police in Queens didn’t take him seriously.
Related: Bisexual man is convicted of NYC hate crime for killing gay man
Ronald Albarracin, 24, said that he was attacked at around 3:30 a.m. on December 8. He said that the assailants called him anti-gay slurs and other insults, before they started to beat him up, punching and kicking him.
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He escaped with a broken nose, bruises, and injuries to his face and hands.
Albarracin, who is originally from Ecuador, told Gay City News that police weren’t helpful.
“The police did not do anything even though they saw me with blood,” he said. “They did not even say anything or explain anything.”
He alleged that the police didn’t speak Spanish or get a translator, even though his English is limited. They “did not try at all to understand what was going on.”
He said that he was taken to Elmhurst Hospital, but he wasn’t given painkillers there. He still gets nosebleeds and has bouts of pain resulting from the attack.
A spokesperson for the NYPD confirmed that Albarracin called 911, but said that investigators do not believe that it was an anti-gay attack and that police don’t have a description of the attackers.
He said that he is too ashamed to leave his home now because of his injuries.
“I do not dare to go out into the street with the way I am, with the broken nose,” he said. “I cannot even take off my hat because of how my face looks. I have not even gone to work.”
Albarracin said that he has been the victim of several anti-LGBTQ attacks in Queens, so he is planning to go to upstate New York.
