Police are investigating an alleged hate crime in Roscoe Village late last week involving a group of Chicago men who say they were brutally gay-bashed by two attackers who are still at large.
Five men were injured in the assault, and one victim said his straight friend and a straight bystander were the worst hurt.
Four of the men were leaving the Four Moon tavern, 1847 W. Roscoe, at about 2 a.m. last Friday morning, June 8, when the two offenders came up behind them. One asked, "Are you a bunch of gays?" according to Christopher Hamm, one of the men attacked. When Hamm and his friends ignored him, the suspect yelled, "You heard me, are you fucking faggots?"
Teddy Wallace, another of the men attacked, said the offenders spent a tense few minutes circling them, following them down the block and taunting them about being gay.
Wallace eventually said that he was gay and that it was none of their business. At that point, one of the offenders punched him in the temple. Hamm stepped in to defend Wallace and was hit in the jaw.
Wallace said there was a racial component to the attack, and that the offenders did not attack an African-American friend of theirs, telling him, "we're not going to touch you, you're a brother."
The victims then began to run in different directions, with one heading back to the tavern to call police. He returned with a fifth man, who Hamm identified as a straight bar patron who came out to help. He was knocked to the ground, kicked and beaten by the suspects, who had also severely beaten a straight friend of Hamm's.
"They messed him up pretty bad," Hamm said of his straight friend. "Blood was pouring out of his nose like a sieve."
"They got the two straight guys worse," he said.
Hamm said he was hit and punched several times, as was another friend.
The suspects had left the scene by the time police arrived. Hamm characterized their interaction with police as mixed, with a sergeant being friendly and cooperative, and an officer threatening to have their by-then hysterical straight friend arrested.
Hamm said the incident has left him stunned.
"My god, I wish I had done more," he said. "I'm not a fighter. It's weird—I can't believe I wasn't more aware of the situation. I was terrified. ... I've never experienced anything like that before."
Wallace, who lives in the neighborhood, said police told him the offenders likely live there as well.
"I'm kind of even scared to walk around there in the daylight now," he said. They were like on the hunt. ... It was so instinctual, their hate."
None of the victims were hospitalized.
The incident is being investigated as a hate crime.