Husbands Brutally Beaten Outside Connecticut Gay Bar
Warning: There’s an extremely graphic photo of one of the victims at the end of this article, which was originally published on the bar’s website following the attack. The image shows the victim in a hospital bed with his cheek gashed open and blood running down his face.
Via NBC:
A gay couple was beaten and bloodied in front of the Connecticut gay bar they own. The two men say the incident was a hate crime, but local authorities disagree.
In a statement shared Tuesday, Casey Fitzpatrick said he and his husband, Nicholas Ruiz — the owners of Troupe429 in Norwalk, Connecticut — were violently assaulted by a male bar patron who also disparaged them with anti-LGBTQ slurs.
The Norwalk Police Department announced Wednesday that they arrested the suspect, Carmen Everett Parisi, earlier that day and said in a statement to NBC News that they found no evidence that the assault was fueled by anti-LGBTQ bias.
Mugshot of Parisi:
More from the NBC story, in which the police say there’s no evidence of a hate crime:
“The arrest follows the Police Department’s warrant issued by a judge, after completing investigative steps of reviewing of video footage from inside the bar and attempting to get sworn statements from the two victims,” Lt. Terrence Blake, the Norwalk Police Department’s public information officer and LGBTQ liaison, said in a statement Wednesday. “Video footage from the body-worn, on-the-scene body cameras show no findings of any racial, religious, ethnic, or sexual orientation (RRES) language or indication of any anti-LGBTQ motivation associated with the assault.”
Huh? Are they saying the victims were wearing body cameras during the attack, and footage from those cameras doesn’t show evidence of a hate crime? It’s not clear, but I don’t think that’s the case at all. If the police are saying the suspect didn’t make anti-LGBT remarks in their body cam footage when they showed up to arrest him, uhhh, so what? That would’ve been after the attack and completely irrelevant.
Here’s the victims’ statement that goes into much more detail (read in full on the bar’s website), and note that the graphic photo is down below:
On the night of the attack, the male suspect came to our gay bar during a drag show. During his time inside the gay bar, he repeatedly harassed and made several female patrons and our staff uncomfortable. While at the venue, he ordered 1 drink, that he did not finish, and was respectfully escorted outside the venue in order to maintain a safe environment for our patrons and our staff inside.
When the suspect would not leave the doorway, Nicholas (my husband, and co-owner) was informed of the situation and went to the door to evaluate and de-escalate the situation. Nicholas pleaded with him to peacefully leave the area. The suspect repeatedly made disparaging statements about the bar and the people inside it, and used derogatory and anti-LGBTQ words.
Then suddenly, the suspect became violent. He punched Nicholas repeatedly, clawed at his chest, tore the cross necklace from his neck, and ripped his clothes.
I was then able to restrain the suspect, while Nicholas immediately called 911. After the suspect appeared to calm down, I let him go, which is when he spun and punched me in the throat, closing my airway, and causing me to fall.
Trying to stop him from attacking me, Nicholas tried to grab the suspect and was repeatedly punched in the right side of his face. His face around his eye and cheek was torn open, requiring a trip to the emergency room, and surgery of over 50 stitches across his face and eye totaling $20,000 in plastic surgery.
Image of Nicholas:
