Castro resident Sean Ray, 42, was on his way home after taking part in the Pink Saturday festivities, June 25, when he found a gaggle of youths on his apartment steps. After a minor verbal dustup between the two parties, Ray was reportedly beaten and kicked by the ragtag group.
Seth Hemmelgarn of the Bay Area Reporter notes:
Ray estimated there were seven people in the vestibule of his building, drinking. There was one woman and several men "crowded in there," he said."They weren't Castro kids. They didn't seem gay at all. ... They weren't the usual people that would be there for Pink Saturday," he said.
They were very "thuggish looking," he added, meaning they wore "baggy" jeans and they were "young, hip-hop looking kids."
Ray said he pushed his way through to get to the door of his building.
"I told them I had to get in there. They said they didn't care," he said.
He said the woman wouldn't move and pushed back at him with her hands, so he pushed her away from the door with his hands. Ray explained that up until that point, he'd been trying to elbow his way through the crowd, rather than putting his hands on anyone.
After allegedly being "punched and kicked" by several of the trespassers, the police arrived. In a shocking twist, and after the assailants apparently scattered, the cops detained Ray.
BAR goes on to report:
The police helped him up and asked him if he was drinking. He said he'd had three or four drinks during the day, but he wasn't drunk. They put him in handcuffs and walked him down Market Street toward a van, without telling him why or where they were taking him, despite him screaming to be told, he said.Ray doesn't know the officers names. He was taken to Mission Station and handcuffed to a bench for about an hour, he said. He also said that he told officers he needed to go to an emergency room, but nobody offered medical assistance or said anything to him. They also wouldn't let him call friends, he claims.
No word yet as to why Ray was treated like the criminal and not the victim.
[BAR]
