New York Man Brutally Assault for Being Openly Gay

(Oct. 13) Jack Price was chased, taunted and brutally beaten in his Queens neighborhood by two men after walking to a deli for a pack of cigarettes.

After sustaining extensive injuries from the assault, Price was placed in a medically induced coma by doctors at Booth Memorial Hospital. He is currently in serious but stable condition.

"Both his lungs are collapsed. All his ribs are broken, his spleen had surgery, and he had to get a metal plate put in his jaw," Joanne Guarneri, Price’s sister-in-law, said.

Before doctors induced Price's coma, he managed to pick out his attackers from photos provided by police.

Daniel Aleman, the 26-year-old who resided above the deli where Price was assaulted, was arrested Sunday and charged with assault and aggravated assault as a hate crime and aggravated harassment.

Daniel Rodriguez has been identified as the second suspect. Police released the photo of the 21 year-old Monday.

Before being in the coma Price told his sister he was leaving a 24-hour deli not far from his home in College Point around 3 a.m. when he was attacked by two men who had been yelling anti-gay slurs while he was in the store and during the assault.

"They were walking in the store calling him a 'faggot,'" said Guarneri.

The attackers taunted Price during the assault, according to Guarneri.

"My father is a C.O. [correction officer]. You will never do anything to us," Aleman allegedly boasted.

Kim Fountain, deputy director of the New York Anti-Violence Project, says this type of random bias crime is actually up 36 percent nationally in the past year.

"It's not just that people are being shoved or punched. It's that their lips are being split or they're ending up in the hospital or they're being murdered,” she said.

Ironically, the motivation behind these attacks is that gay rights have come so far.

"When we become more visible, it sends a message to the general population we're getting more and more rights and advocating for ourselves more, and so people are taking out their vices on us," Fountain said.

New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, the first openly gay speaker of the city council, along with Queens City politicians held a press conference outside of the hospital to condemn the attack against Price.

“The two ignorant and hateful individuals who committed this crime represent a minority of New Yorkers,” Quinn said.

"To do this as a human being, no matter what their sexuality is, is a disgrace," Guarneri said. “This man would not hurt a soul. He's five foot six and 130 pounds.”