WPLG. “I hear his voice. I see his face.”Garcia said he left his condominium on A1A near 27th Street around 7:45 a.m. when he heard screaming nearby.
A few moments he said the man he later identified as Charles approached him.“Never seen the person in my life. Don’t know who he is,” Garcia said, becoming emotional. “When he approached me, [he] asked me if I was gay, and then he punched me.”The punch was so brutal that it knocked Garcia off his feet.“He punched me really hard.
I fell to the ground bleeding,” Garcia continued. “My phone was covered in blood. I couldn’t call 911. My fingers kept slipping.”He said one passerby ignored his plea for help while he was bleeding on the ground.“Thankfully another person from the neighborhood stopped, called the police.”Garcia said he suffered multiple facial fractures and two lacerations that required 10 stitches to repair.The homophobic attack is one of several to have occurred recently.
Pride Media's editorial director of print, Neal Broverman, and his husband Robbie Pierce, were attacked for being gay parents on an AMTRAK train in California while traveling with their two small children.