A homophobe spray-painted “Kill the Gay Away” on an abandoned building in Manhattan on August 8, according to the NYPD.
Police say the man wrote the hateful words on the front gate of a building at 11 Avenue A in the East Village at 2:40 a.m. The NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force is probing the case.
After scrawling the bigoted words on the fence, the suspect fled toward East Houston Street, according to the NYPD.
Governor Andrew Cuomo deployed the state’s Hate Crimes Task Force to assist the city’s effort in the case.
“In New York we have zero tolerance for this sort of vile and cowardly act of hate,” he wrote in a tweet. “I’m directing the State Police Hate Crimes Unit to assist the NYPD with its investigation to ensure those responsible are held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”
The suspect has blonde hair and is described as 5’6” tall and weighs about 180 pounds.
The homophobic spray-painting follows other anti-LGBTQ early-morning attacks in the city in recent months. A man was arrested in July after he allegedly set fire to Rainbow Flags on multiple occasions at a gay bar in Harlem, while a pair of trans women who were filming a documentary were attacked by transphobes in Jackson Heights.
The suspects in both of those cases were charged with hate crimes.
