A Miami man who traveled to Tennessee for his 20-year high school reunion said he was attacked by a man because he is gay, WSMV reported.
Shawn Farris is accusing another man of punching him in the face and hitting him early Sunday morning. Farris, who sported a wrist brace during an interview, said he has a possible fracture in his arm, sustained a knot on his head and scratches to his face, the Nashville television station reported.
“If I had been alone with this man, there is no telling what he would have done to me if he is capable of doing something like that with witnesses,” Farris said.
He said his attacker called him a derogatory name several times.
“He said to me, ‘Mind your own business you little fa***t’ and he says ‘I’ll kill that little fa***t.’”
But despite Farris’s claim that the alleged crime was motivated by his sexuality, the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office told WSMV it does not plan to investigate the incident as a hate crime.
Click here to read a story about homeless and their advocates speaking about hate crimes.
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“We are certainly sensitive to the fact that that does occur at times and in places, but we just don’t feel like that is the case in this instance,” Chris Guess of the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office said.
Farris is a flight attendant for Delta Airlines and began the Flight Attendant Project to help gay teenagers who are bullied, according to WSMV.
“To help save these kids’ lives, and when that happened last night I thought, ‘Wow, I know that I am doing the right thing in what I’m doing,’” he said.
To read a story about a gay couple that was able to adopt, click here.
Farris, who had a written report filed, plans to press charges.
“The hurt, the pain, and when you’re lying there on that ground and thinking, ‘Why is this happening?’ I have fought so hard to come to where I am," he said.
