Apology sought in attack
Prejudice not a factor in assault, restaurant says
Activists demand an apology after a gay couple said they were attacked at a Phoenix restaurant.
Activist organizations in the Valley are demanding an apology after a couple said they were attacked early Monday at a restaurant on Roosevelt Row for being gay.
Rudy Haro and Fernando De Los Reyes Lugo said they were attacked by a group of men at The Golden Margarita nightclub for their sexual orientation, according to the west Valley NAACP and the Arizona Unity Collective, a group of civil rights activist organizations in Arizona.
At a press conference Saturday, the activist organizations said they are asking the restaurant to apologize to the couple and for video footage of the incident to be released. They also want a police investigation and policy changes in how police handle crimes of bias.
The couple did not appear at the press conference, but wanted NAACP and Unity Collective to speak on their behalf as they took time to be with family.
‘People were laughing instead of helping’
An Instagram post from an account named gayprideapparel, which has more than 44,000 followers, shared a video from one of the men with details about what happened. The post has more than 600 likes.
“Tonight, everybody knows that it was Fernando’s birthday and my anniversary, so we went downtown,” Haro said in the video. “Me and my man got attacked by a lot of straight men tonight.”
The video then shows De Los Reyes Lugo with bloodstains on his shirt.
“One of the guys who assaulted us did have a gun he was trying to pull out until my friend started screaming for help. People were laughing instead of helping,” the description for the Instagram post said.
Sarah Tyree, criminal justice chair for the west Valley NAACP, said Haro entered the bar while De Los Reyes Lugo went back outside to the car with a friend to get his ID. While Haro was in the bar trying to get a drink, another patron told him he “couldn’t be there,” Tyree said.
Tyree said Haro didn’t understand what was happening and thought maybe he missed a sign. The person continued to tell him he couldn’t be there, Tyree said, and then told him “they don’t do that gay (expletive) here.”
Tyree said Haro was pushed outside and was hit in the head, though he is unsure how or who pushed him outside. De Los Reyes Lugo then returned and was also assaulted, she said.
The two men and their friend called police after they said restaurant security “failed to protect them,” according an earlier statement from activists.
The four Phoenix police officers who responded to the incident were dismissive, said the NAACP and Unity Collective, adding “this was not a bar fight.”
The Instagram post said the back of Haro’s head was swollen and that De Los Reyes Lugo’s face was swollen with a potentially fractured nose.
A Phoenix police spokesperson said police responded to a fight at a business near Fourth and Roosevelt streets, where The Golden Margarita is located, at about 1 a.m. on Monday and found two men with injuries on their faces.
Phoenix fire personnel provided medical treatment for the two men, said Sgt. Mercedes Fortune, a spokesperson for Phoenix police.
Fortune said the two men were impaired and could not provide details of the fight when police tried to gather information from them. Police said one of the men pointed to a woman and said she hit him.
The woman told police that the two men were sitting in an area that was reserved for a private party and that the fight started after the men, who she said were intoxicated, refused to leave,
The Golden Margarita said on Instagram Friday that ... the incident was “neither racial or sexual prejudice, and our staff was not involved.”
according to Fortune.
The woman denied any involvement and could not describe any suspects, Fortune said. Several witnesses were also contacted, but they could not corroborate any of the information provided to police about why the assault occurred, Fortune said.
No suspect description was provided and no arrests were made, Fortune said. The investigation is ongoing and is being investigated by the Phoenix police bias crime detectives, according to Fortune on Saturday.
Tyree said Saturday that “being intoxicated is not illegal and it is also not a reason not to have aid rendered to you, it is not a reason for law enforcement to (not) look into their case.”
Restaurant says incident wasn’t biased against sexual orientation
The Golden Margarita said on Instagram Friday that an incident occurred across the street from their restaurant with two separate parties who were patrons of the restaurant the same evening. The post also said the incident was “neither racial or sexual prejudice, and our staff was not involved.”
“We sincerely apologize for any actions that may have occurred recently at the Golden Margarita restaurant over this past weekend,” the statement from the restaurant said.
The restaurant also completed an internal investigation involving the restaurant owners and management to “rectify any issue” and prevent any from happening again, the statement said.
“Here at The Golden Margarita we are big on having an open environment welcoming all people from all walks of life. We do not and will never discriminate against anybody, either it be for their sexual orientation or racial background,” the statement said.
A man who says he is a restaurant manager posted an Instagram video under the username albertlmeeks and said the fight occurred both at and across the street from the restaurant.
“In this situation, we all could have done better, but when things happen outside of our venue, we are not liable for anything that happens outside of our venue,” he said in the video.
The manager, who said he is a Black gay man, said he reached out to all involved parties of the incident but did not hear back from anyone as of Thursday.
Kaitlyn Kavanaugh, who lives in the apartment complex attached to the restaurant, said she was woken up by loud screams on the night the incident took place and saw police and a person lying on the cement across the street. She said incidents and fights have occurred a lot more frequently at the restaurant.
“It’s a struggle because we live above, it’s constantly in our ears,” she told The Arizona Republic. She also said that there’s sometimes vomit on the sidewalk as well as broken glass on the street outside the restaurant.
Members of the NAACP and Unity Collective said that a manager eventually reached out to Haro and De Los Reyes Lugo to offer future compensated drinks and food, but said they asked if the men would meet them at the restaurant.
“Obviously that’s not on neutral ground, especially after they were just assaulted at your establishment,” Tyree said.
Karrington Valenzuela, an activist with Unity Collective who is also known as Nevaeh McKenzie, said this incident isn’t an isolated one. Since the couple approached him to speak on their behalf, Valenzuela said he learned about other incidents against LGBTQ men that were not deemed biased or a hate crime in Phoenix.
“What are the Phoenix police doing about this? Why are these cases being dismissed or not being handled as aggressively as they should be?” he said.
Now, Valenzuela said he is calling out police and establishments like The Golden Margarita for their treatment of people in the LGBTQ community.
Tyree said the couple has taken this incident “very hard, nobody deserves to be assaulted, specifically for being themselves.”
Local, state and national resources for the LGBTQ community can be found on the Arizona Department of Health Service’s website.