Do You Know These 2 Men Who Attacked LGBT Youth On the NYC Subway?

Impact

From Washington D.C., to New York, last week held a lot of exciting and life-changing news for the LGBT community. Despite these national changes, crimes against the community is still rampant.

On Sunday night, however, just a few short hours after New York City’s Pride parade, two men on the Queens-bound F Train allegedly assaulted a group of LGBT youth and the woman who filmed the incident.

Footage of the incident has gone viral on YouTube, garnering more than 75,000 views since yesterday. The concerned citizen who uploaded the video is asking for help identifying the two men, whose faces can clearly be seen on tape.

According to the video's description, the two men were making homophobic comments such as, "Today was a scary day for me. There were fags everywhere."

"When a group of queer youth got on the train, the men proceeded to harass them, stating that the teens made them want to puke and that they would be killed if they were in Iran," the uploader wrote, continuing that. "The first assailant then threatened to rape them, at which point I took out my phone to document the incident."

 After noticing he was being recorded, the first assailant appears to lunge at the woman filming him and allegedly violently grabs her arms in an attempt to steal her phone.

The witness writes:

"One of the youth took the phone from me temporarily to protect it and told the assailant he shouldn't attack a woman. When the assailant threatened to punch me, I took the phone back and ran to the other side of the train to push the emergency button and alert the authorities. At this point the second assailant got up and came towards me, grabbing my body and hands to try and get the phone to destroy the evidence. I yelled and told him I was an attorney. An onlooker then got up and stood between the assailants and myself, and another person left to get the train conductor."

The video then documents another altercation between the two men and other subway riders including a young woman who is wearing a rainbow Pride flag. One of the assailants threatened to kill the woman and even put his hands around her throat.

According to the witness filming, the attackers exited the train at the Roosevelt Avenue station in Jackson Heights, Queens and were overheard saying that they were on their way to Jamaica, Queens.

"I was left with bruises and scratches from both assailants which I also documented," the witness wrote. "If anyone sees them or knows them personally, please contact the authorities. This was a hate crime."

New York’s Anti-Violence Project issued a statement denouncing the incident and said they will be "reaching out to the NYPD about this incident, and is contacting community partner Make the Road New York, and New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, the Queens District Attorney’s Office, and Council Member Ruben Wills in Queens."