Four men surrender in attack on couple

Beating happened after Pride Parade

On a day meant to promote unity and understanding, two men who were holding hands in Miami Beach following the city’s Gay Pride Parade were attacked and beaten.

The four attackers surrendered to police via an attorney, Miami Beach police announced on Twitter Tuesday afternoon. “We anticipate felony charges for each of them,” the tweet said.

Police had released surveillance images of the attack that happened shortly after 7:30 p.m. Sunday near a restroom along Ocean Drive near Sixth Street.

According to police, the young men who are seen in a picture — one of them wearing an FIU T-shirt and another with a red and white patterned beach towel over his right shoulder — attacked the couple, Rene Charlarca and Dmitry Logunov.

“We probably provoked them because we were walking together, holding hands,” Logunov told WTVJ-Ch. 6. “It was gay pride, South Beach was full of gay people,” he told the station.

The beating continued after Logunov was knocked to the ground and Charlarca tried to

confront the attackers.

“Then they start kicking me and punching me without a reason,” Charlarca told WSVN-Ch. 7.

The two were chased as they ran away from their attacker and were left with cuts and bruises to their faces and other parts of their bodies.

Police are investigating the incident as a possible hate crime.

“The four subjects actually made a derogatory, anti-gay slur in Spanish to the victims,” Miami Beach Police Officer Ernesto Rodriguez told WSVN.

Logunov and Charlarca were not the only people hurt during the incident. Witness Helmut Muller, 29, told the Miami Herald that when he tried to intervene, one of the attackers knocked him out and he hit his head on the concrete. The gash on his head required four stiches, the paper reported.