A man was shot in New York after being branded as gay over his clothing

May 20, 2013 06:40 GMT  ·  By

A man from New York has been killed in what police are calling a hate crime, in New York. On Saturday, May 18, Mark Carson of Harlem was gunned down over being gay.

32-year-old Carson, who ran a West Village frozen-yogurt stand was walking with a friend when three men approached them.

They came down Sixth Avenue walking behind the men, and one of them took off once they reached West Eighth Street, NY Post reported.

“Is he your boy?” 33-year-old Elliot Morales asked Carson referring to his friend, to which the victim answered affirmatively. The suspect had also made comments about the pair being dressed like “gay wrestlers.”

“I thought that kind of hate stuff was gone, but I see that it’s not.

“It’s simply ridiculous. People are what people are. They do what they do. You can’t knock down who people are,” grieving father Mark Carson Sr. comments.

According to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, Morales pulled out a Taurus .38-caliber and shot Carson in the cheek.

“There were no words that would aggravate the situation spoken by the victims here. [...] This fully looks to be a hate crime, a bias crime,” Kelly says.

CBS News informed that, 15 minutes before the attack, Morales was spotted peeing on the side of a restaurant building near the Stonewall Inn.

He walked inside the restaurant and threatened patrons and staff with shooting them if they reported the urinating incident.

“There was a time in New York City when two people of the same gender could not walk down the street arm-in-arm without fear of violence and harassment.

“We refuse to go back to that time,” Council Speaker Christine Quinn notes.

“This kind of shocking and senseless violence, so deeply rooted in hate, has no place in a city whose greatest strength will always be its diversity,” she adds.