The Stonewall Inn — the famous Greenwich Village bar that helped spur the gay rights movement in 1969 — was the site of a homophobic hate crime that resulted in a patron being beaten in the restroom this weekend, according to reports.
Police arrested two young men from Staten Island, who allegedly asked the bar’s customer if he was “gay” and yelled anti-gay slurs as they attacked him in the historic gay bar. Matthew Francis, 21, and Christopher Orlando, 17 — who also demanded money from the 34-year-old victim — were charged with attempted robbery and assault as a hate crime, police said. Francis was held on $10,000 bail yesterday. Orlando was awaiting arraignment.
“We don’t like gay bars, and we don’t piss next to f—-ts,” Francis said before Orlando threw punches, a source told the Daily News.
It was apparently the weekend’s second hate crime in a gay-friendly neighborhood. Andrew Jackson, 20, of Chelsea, was being arraigned yesterday on charges of assault as a hate crime, among others, for allegedly yelling “Go home f—–ts, this is our neighborhood,” before he and others beat two men who had been hugging and kissing at the corner of Ninth Avenue and 25th Street, according to reports.
