Luis Vieira, 47, and his partner, Richard Vieira, 39, were on their way into a White Castle in Stapleton, Staten Island around 2:30 a.m. Wednesday when they noticed a group of about 40 black youths, male and female, walking in the middle of the street. The couple proceeded inside, and were sitting enjoying their burgers when one of three of the youths entered. Luis Vieira tells SI Live that as he watched them come in, one of the youths asked him, "What the fuck are you looking at, fag?"
Luis Vieira, who was wearing a rainbow colored band on his arm, shot back, "What the fuck are you looking at?" Seconds later, Luis Vieira said he felt a "bop in the back of the head," and he ran outside with his partner, but the youths were "swarming the parking lot," and so he retreated inside to ask a White Castle worker to call 911. Then he realized Richard was no longer with him. Luis found him semiconscious and bleeding, and says he had been jumped and sucker-punched in the back of the head.
"I blotted him, brought him back to the White Castle," he tells SI Live. "I had blood all over me. My partner had blood all over him." Police and an ambulance soon arrived, and Richard Vieira was taken to a nearby hospital where his head was sewn up. No arrests were made, but the incident is being investigated as a hate crime. Vieira tells SI Live he's disturbed such a large group could gather in the neighborhood without police stopping them, and asks, "How many people is it going to take to get assaulted or possibly killed before something is done?"
Last month a man was convicted of second degree murder as a hate crime for killing an Ecuadorean immigrant who was walking with his arm around his brother. And here's a long appalling history of recent gay bashing in New York City.
