SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KTXL/CNN) — Investigators are looking into a possible hate crime that happened around 10:30 Sunday night on the corner of 20th and D streets in Midtown.
Two men, armed with a baseball bat, first yelled derogatory anti-gay slurs at a man in his 40s and then struck him in the knees with the bat.
Neighbors tell FOX40 they didn’t hear anything, but are outraged at the attack.
“The guys who beat this guy was a coward. Anytime you get two people against one person with a baseball bat, they’re cowards. They wake up in the morning, they look in the mirror and go, ‘Oh, damn. It’s still me,'” said neighbor Steven Ybarra.
Physically, the victim will recover from the attack, but because of the words before the beating, this crime has moved from simple assault to a felony hate crime in the eyes of Sacramento detectives.
“Hate crimes like that, I wish I had been there. I would have been more than happy to help the gentleman,” said a neighbor.
