Casey Fitzpatrick and husband Nicholas Ruiz, the owners of Troupe429 who were attacked last month outside their popular Norwalk, Connecticut gay bar, are calling for the incident to be designated as a hate crime.
Reports the Advocate:
Police in Norwalk arrested Carmen Parisi on Wednesday, alleging that he committed an assault at the gar bar Troupe429. The following day, he appeared in court, and prosecutors accused him of spouting homophobic slurs in addition to punching the victims in the September 23 incident, Connecticut’s local NBC station WVIT reports.
Although police have so far declined to consider the attack a hate crime, the victims’ attorney is confident that the assault will be reclassified as one.
“We believe that once all of this comes to light, it will be evident that this was a hate crime,” said attorney Stephanie Stich, noting one of her clients was hit in the face, and the other was punched in the throat by Parisi.
Parisi’s lawyer disputes that version of events, alleging that bar staff attacked their client after escorting him out.
Parisi’s arrest came after the bar’s owners alleged that Norwalk police were not taking the assault seriously because they failed to investigate the attack as a hate crime. …
The assailant entered Troupe429 during a drag show and “repeatedly harassed and made several female patrons and our staff uncomfortable,” and “made disparaging statements about the bar and the people inside it” using “derogatory and anti-LGBTQ words,” according to a post on the bar’s website attributed to Casey Fitzpatrick, who owns the bar with his husband, Nicholas Ruiz.
According to Fitzpatrick, the man assaulted Ruiz while they were escorting him out. An image of Ruiz on the bar’s website shows him lying in a hospital bed with a bloodied slash across his face.
Read the complete Advocate story here.
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