Two Austin, Texas men claim they were
the victims of a hate crime on the day after Christmas.
Bobby Beltran and Christopher Ortega
say the attack was prompted by an embrace they shared after leaving a
downtown gay bar early Sunday morning.
When five men who witnessed the hug
began yelling homophobic slurs at the pair from inside their car,
Beltran yelled back, “That stuff's not welcome here in Austin. We
don't accept that.”
“One guy came out of the car, started
attacking him [Ortega], then they put the car in park, jumped out and
surrounded us,” he added.
The men say they were punched, kicked
and yelled at for five to ten minutes. The attack ended when one of
the men warned that the police were coming.
But the victims say the police didn't
offer much assistance.
“The response was like 'Sorry guys.
We'll give you a report number. We'll never catch these guys,'”
Ortega told NBC affiliate KXAN. (The video is embedded in the right
panel of this page.)
Among medium sized cities, Austin leads
the state in the number of reported anti-gay attacks, according to
the FBI.