Gay Couple Attacked: Man Throws A Chair Over Spilled Drink

A gay couple was attacked during an outing at a NYC restaurant. The couple, Jonathan Snipes, 32, and his 25-year-old boyfriend, Ethan York-Adams, decided to celebrate the Cinco de Mayo holiday on Tuesday with a stop for margaritas at a Dallas BBQ in Chelsea. The outing did not end well for the couple, according to the New York Daily News.

While seated at the bar, Snipes received a call that a relative had died. He decided to rush out of the establishment, and in his rush, he knocked over the drink of one of the men next to him. The man used a verbal slur against Snipes, but it did not end there. A video of the fight has surfaced on the internet, and a man used a chair to strike Snipes following the slurs.

It has been reported that his boyfriend, York-Adams, was unconscious for several minutes following the fight. Snipes spoke with DNA-Info New York about the fight.

“A table near us audibly started making pretty gross comments about the two of us like, ‘White f—-ts, spilling drinks.’ I don’t let anyone talk to me like that. I went over there and asked, ‘What did you say about us?’ I may be a mouthy broad, but I wasn’t going to take it to [physical]. He turned it into a physical altercation very quickly. At some point, the guy stops kicking me in the face. He’s won. York-Adams] gets me up. But as he tried to get me away, that’s when the other dude hits him with the chair. They hit us hard and then they wouldn’t stop. I was hobbling away and they came and attacked us again.”

Snipes also told the media that he felt the attack was due to his sexuality. He said that the man attacked him and his boyfriend “because they knew we weren’t their type of people.”

However, the man that shot the video of the incident, Isaam Sharef, told the New York Daily News that he did not feel the attack was a hate crime. He did not hear any of the gay slurs mentioned by Snipes that night, and he revealed that the bar is located in the “heart of the Chelsea gay club district.” Sharef shared more about the incident with the news outlet.

“Everyone was commenting on them fighting. It was a big scene. I didn’t get the impression it was a hate crime because the other guy (Snipes) started the fight.”

The man that used the chair against Snipes and his boyfriend quickly left the scene with his friends following the attack. He has not been identified, but the Hate Crime Task Force of the New York Police Department is investigating the attack as a “possible bias attack.”

Neither man was taken to the hospital after the incident. Snipes did not want to pay the money for the ambulance.

“I don’t have insurance. The ride to the hospital was going to cost $1,000. I’d rather, in the comfort of my living room, be kept up than go to the hospital.”

However, Snipes revealed that he was injured during the incident. The “cartilage in his ear snapped and a tooth knocked loose in the melee.”

Sarah Meyers spoke with the media, and she wants the video of the incident to go viral. She hopes the footage will help them identify the man responsible for the attack.

Corey Johnson, a New York City Councilman, spoke out about the incident on Wednesday.

“[I am] appalled and angered by the senseless act of anti-LGBT hate violence that was perpetrated last night at a restaurant in my district. I urge the perpetrators of this act to turn themselves in immediately.”

Dallas BBQ posted a statement about the attack in the restaurant’s front window. There was no damage to the establishment during the fight.

#DallasBBQ says it’s saddened by attack of gay couple in Chelsea, doesn’t tolerate hateful behavior. #NYPD pic.twitter.com/XKgjEKuDuE

— Rocco Vertuccio (@RoccoNY1) May 7, 2015

This is not the only gay attack that has made news in recent weeks. According to a previous Inquisitr report, a gay student was attacked at Carver School of Technology. A group of students attacked Tim Jefferson, and he was stabbed with a screwdriver repeatedly during the attack. That attack was also caught on cell phone video.

What do you think of the attack on this gay couple in New York City?

[Photo: Google Maps]