An openly-gay Queens man is in a medically-induced coma after a brutal Friday morning beating which police are investigating as a hate crime. 49-year-old Jack Price was leaving a 24-hour deli in College Point around 3 a.m. when he was attacked by two men who allegedly screamed anti-gay slurs during the assault. Yesterday police arrested 26-year-old Daniel Aleman and have charged him with assault and aggravated assault as a hate crime; the second suspect remains at large.
Before losing consciousness, Price told family members that the suspects followed him from the store calling him a "faggot," and Aleman allegedly boasted during the beating, "My father is a C.O. [correction officer]. You will never do anything to us." (It has not yet been confirmed that Aleman's father is in fact a correction officer.) Price's sister-in-law tells the Daily News, "Look what they did to him because he is gay. It is in God's hands right now. There is nothing more they can do for him." In July, two men were arrested for beating a transgender female in St. Albans, Queens.
