In a horrifying assault caught on video, a man named Ethan York-Adams was smashed over the head with a heavy wooden chair while helping his boyfriend Jonathan Snipes get away from a man who had been beating him and saying anti-gay slurs. The assault happened Tuesday night in a Chelsea barbecue restaurant and was filmed by a witness named Isaam Sharef.
Jonathan Snipes told DNAinfo:
At the restaurant, Snipes got a text about a death in his family and needed to leave the restaurant quickly, he said. As he headed out, he accidentally knocked over a drink, he said.
“A table near us audibly started making pretty gross comments about the two of us like, ‘White f—-ts, spilling drinks,'” Snipes said.
Snipes talked back, and one of the men at the table got up and got physical with Snipes, knocking him to the ground and kicking him in the head and body.
The beating eventually subsided, and York-Adams was able to get Snipes and begin leading him out of the restaurant. It was at this point when the other man from the table came up behind York-Adams and hit him over the head with the chair, dropping him to the ground and hitting a glancing blow to Snipes’ shoulder.
The assailants fled the scene before police and medical crews arrived, and no one has been arrested yet. An NYPD spokesperson told DNAinfo that the assault is not currently being investigated as a hate crime, despite Snipes and York-Adams’ allegations that the assailants used anti-gay slurs during the attack.
