Police arrest second suspect in NYC anti-gay attack
Police have arrested the second man who allegedly beat a Queens resident early Friday morning because he is gay.
Norfolk, Va., police officers and U.S. Marshals took Daniel Rodriguez, 21, into custody last night at a relative's home. Both Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn praised the arrest in a statement.
"Hate crimes like this one are particularly distasteful and won't be tolerated in our city," Bloomberg said.
Daniel Aleman, 26, and Rodriguez allegedly beat Jack Price, 49, around 3 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 9, outside a College Point deli. The two men reportedly taunted Price, who remains in a medically induced coma at Booth Memorial Hospital, before they chased him and eventually beat him in the street. WPIX broadcast a surveillance video last night that captured the attack.
Quinn, state Sen. Tom Duane [D-Chelsea,] City Councilmember John Liu [D-Flushing] and openly gay City Council candidates Danny Dromm and Jimmy Van Bramer were among those who denounced the attack at a press conference outside the hospital on Monday, but the attack against Price is the latest in a series of anti-LGBT hate and bias crimes that have rocked Queens in recent months. Trinidad Tapia and Gilberto Ortiz allegedly beat Leslie Morak with a belt buckle as she walked home from a Jackson Heights nightclub in June. And Nathaniel Mims and Rasheed Thomas face hate crimes charges after they allegedly attacked Carmella Etienne with rocks and empty beer bottles on July 8 as she walked home from a store near her St. Albans apartment.
Local activists continue to plan a possible vigil and rally against anti-LGBT hate and bias crimes.