A woman and and her mother were mistaken for a lesbian couple and attacked at a New York City restaurant on Saturday (12 September) night.
Tiffany Santiago, 27, was eating a late-night dinner at a Korean restaurant in Midtown when two women and a man at a nearby table started yelling anti-gay slurs and throwing things at them.
‘We keep hearing the word “lesbian” said over and over again,’ Santiago told CBS2.
‘Me and my mom look very similar in age, and so I think me with the short hair, and my mom’s really tall – she’s like five-eight; she’s a big lady.’
She added: ‘I think they thought we were on a date.’
The trio then forced Santiago to the ground and dragged her by her legs. Her mother was not attacked.
‘He threw me across the restaurant,’ she said.
‘I don’t even know how far I went, but I went through tables, chairs, glasses.’
Santiago was treated at hospital, where she received six stitches in her knee. She still has to walk with a cane and said it would be several days before she could go back to work as a veterinary technician.
Police are searching for a white balding man in his mid-40s, and two white women in their mid-30s.
The New York Police Department’s Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating.