Tag Archives: Chelsea

Explosion Rocks NYC’s Chelsea Neighborhood Injures 29+ – Video

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Explosion Rocks NYC's Chelsea Neighborhood Injures 29+ - Video

 

An explosion rocked the New York City neighborhood of Chelsea, Saturday night, leaving more than two dozen people injured.

The cause of the blast late on Saturday in Chelsea remains unclear. Mayor Bill de Blasio described it as “intentional” but said that there were no known links to terror.

The force of the blast blew out windows and could be heard several blocks away.

Another device, reportedly a pressure cooker rigged with wires, was later found in the same neighborhood..

The explosion occurred around 9.00 pm on Saturday night.. Witnesses said people ran in all directions following the “incredibly loud” blast.

“The initial indications is this was an intentional act,” Mr de Blasio said.

But he added: “We also want to be upfront saying that there is no evidence at this point of a terror connection to this incident.”

Still, law enforcement sources told CBS News the Joint Terrorism Task Force is ramping up operations in New York.

Law enforcement officials said that the device found at the second Chelsea location appeared to be a pressure cooker attached to wiring and a mobile phone. Police said it had been removed safely.

Twenty-nine people were hurt in the explosion, including one considered seriously injured, officials said.

“This is a very dense area, the whole block is restaurants and residences and this area on a warm Saturday night is an area swarming with people,” New York City Councilman Cory Johnson stated.

Johnson, who represents the area, said that FBI and federal Homeland Security officials were on the scene, in addition to New York City police.

The NYPD investigated a possible second device, confirmed to be a pressure cooker, on 27th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues. A bomb disposal robot was deployed at the scene and the device was safely removed for further analysis, police said.

Police investigated a third suspicious package on 28th Street and 5th Ave., but it turned out to be nothing dangerous.

Meanwhile, law enforcement was already reviewing surveillance video of the area where the explosion occurred looking for clues, CBS station WCBS reported.

 

 

 

NYC Dallas BBQ Chair Basher Bayna El-Amin Sentenced To 9 Years In Prison For Attack On Gay Couple

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Dallas BBQ Basher Gets 9 Years

Duncan Osbourne reports at Gay City News:

Bayna-Lekheim El-Amin was sentenced to nine years in prison and three years post-release supervision for assaulting two men in the Dallas BBQ in Chelsea in 2015.

“The jury rejected your claim of self-defense,” said Arlene Goldberg, the judge who heard the case in Manhattan Supreme Court, on September 15. “That you did not cause serious physical injury to them was only a matter of luck.”

El-Amin faced five low-level felony assault charges in a May 5, 2015 altercation he had with Jonathan Snipes, 33, and his then-partner, Ethan York-Adams, 26, in the restaurant, which is located at Eighth Avenue and 23rd Street.

The prosecution’s case, which included several videos, was that the fight was divided into three parts and the 42-year-old was not charged with any crime in part one, where he was defending himself from Snipes, who started the fight by attacking El-Amin.

In parts two and three, El-Amin was continuing to fight when Snipes had effectively surrendered, the prosecution said. El-Amin always faced the greatest jeopardy from his actions in part three, where he can be seen hitting the two men on their heads with a heavy wooden chair as they stand with their backs to him.

El-Amin claimed he was defending himself in the altercation with the much smaller Jonathan Snipes at the Chelsea restaurant. Indeed, surveillance video showed Snipes starting the fight bu hitting El-Amin with a canvass bag. But El-Amin, according to prosecutors, continued the fight after Snipes had given up. Additional video showed El-Amin “hitting the two men on their heads with a heavy wooden chair as they stand with their backs to him walking away to the horror of on-lookers and then fled the scene.

“The case boils down to this defendant took it too far,” said prosecutor Leah Saxtein. “He decided to get revenge. … He used a dangerous instrument to strike them in the most vulnerable part of the human body.”

El-Amin and some supporters attempted to frame the incident that El-Amin was a victim of racism. Waddie G of the black entertainment website the G-List Society shared social media posts accusing Snipes and York-Adams of exploiting “white privilege” which was picked up by other various QPOC groups including the former LGBT equality group GetEQUAL. . El-Amin who himself spoke at the hearing, described his accusers as “drunk white men who felt they were entitled to swing on me.”

But the judge did not agree. “I know that you want to cast this, your supporters as well, as an issue about race,” Goldberg said. “I don’t see it that way. … When you picked up that chair, that was a criminal act that cannot be excused.”

El-Amin’s lawyer had sought the minimum sentence, three and a half years, for the charges on which he was convicted. The prosecution sought 12 years plus five years of post-release supervision.

El-Amin has a previous record of 29 felony convictions across several states.

 

I SURRENDER: Chelsea BBQ Chair Basher Bayna-Lehkiem El-Amin Turns Himself In To Police: “I Was The Victim”

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gay bashingBayna-Lehkiem El-Amin, the man wanted in connection with the bashing a gay man over the head with a chair for defending his partner at a Chelsea BBQ  joint in NYC turned himself in Tuesday morning after being on the run and alluding arrest for over a month..

El-Amin, 41, walked into the 7th precinct house with his lawyer around 9:30 a.m. 

El-Amin, who is “reportedly gay” by a very questionable source  has 18 previous arrests in numerous states for assault, credit-card fraud, possession of stolen property, and forgery, told the discredited blog G List Society who has been helping and supporting  El-Amin that the men he assaulted, Jonathan Snipes and his boyfriend, Ethan York-Adams, actually started the fight.

“He assaulted me,” El-Amin told G List Society. “I was the victim.”

“My only thought was to facilitate an exit that they would not follow behind us, because there was no one there to stop them from doing so—or pull a weapon out on us. There was a chair, that’s closest thing to me. That’s why I threw it. I didn’t look at as a way to mane [sic] him or use as a deadly force.”

As you can see in the below in a video of the horrible event Snipes and his boyfriend move away from El-Amin after being physically stomped on by him and not hitting him with anything and then El-Amin strikes Snipes over the head forcefullywith a chair. El-Amin also called the couple “white faggots” according to witnesses.

Currently El-Amin, who lives in the Bronx, was charged with two counts of felony assault and attempted assault, police said.

We will post more information as it becomes available.

 

BREAKING: NYPD Identifies Suspect In NYC’s Chelsea BBQ Attack On Gay Couple

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gay bashingThe NYPD has identified the suspect involved in an assault on a gay couple in the Dallas BBQ restaurant in Chelsea as career criminal  Bayna El-Amin, El-Amin has 18 prior arrests spanning back to 1993, police said. All but two of those incidents took place out of state.

ABC 7 reports:

Detectives have been tracking him for about a week, but have not been able to take him into custody. They will put out his picture later Tuesday.

“I have him identified, we are seeking him now. He’s been identified for about a week. We will see if we can get him in,” said NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce. “He is a career criminal. We believe he has fled the state.”

Bayna El-Amin’s Facebook page appears to have been deleted, but Google’s cache for the page shows that he says he works in “Personal Security for Sketchie ENTertainment,” a nightclub promotion company.

Directly after the horrible incident blogger Waddie G of The G-List attempted to use this incident to drive a wedge into the LGBT community by falsely claiming “white privilege” and declaring that the attacker himself was actually gay and was a victim of harassment by the couple that was bashed.

 One of the patrons at the restaurant called me and identified the chair thrower by name.  I looked up the chair tosser’s Facebook profile, and he is allegedly gay, gay, gay and pretty popular in the ballroom scene.  I am not going to snitch the guy out because I am on his side of self-defenseminus the chair tossing and hate the white gay privileged narratives by gay bloggers, blogs and organizations who sensationalized this incident into more than what it was to protect the white gay hot head who wanted to demonize the Black gay men as aggressors over a physical altercation that he provoked when he could have ignored their foul language like I always do when insults are hurled my way.

Police released surveillance video of the suspect on May 7, one day after disturbing video emerged of a brawl inside the restaurant during which Jonathan Snipes was cracked over the head with a wooden chair.

 

Gay Couple Brutally Attacked And Bashed With Chair At Chelsea Restaurant – WARNING: Disturbing Graphic Video

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gay bashingDisturbing news out of the usually very gay-friendly Chelsea section of NYC.

Via DNA Info:

A gay couple was bashed over the head with a wooden chair, knocked to the ground and kicked by two men hurling anti-gay slurs at the Chelsea Dallas BBQ Tuesday night, in an attack captured on a graphic video, according to police and the victims. “These guys attacked us specifically because they knew we weren’t their type of people,” said Jonathan Snipes, 32, who had a tooth knocked loose and cartilage snapped in his ear during the beating.

“It was disgusting. It was awful,” Snipes, who was attacked alongside his boyfriend Ethan York-Adams, 25, told DNAinfo New York. In one video, York-Adams, 25, tries to shield Snipes by throwing his arm around his shoulder just before a man rushes up to them with a wooden chair and cracks it over their heads. York-Adams falls to the floor and Snipes slumps into a nearby chair, visibly dazed. An NYPD spokesman said an investigation is ongoing, but that the incident was not currently being investigated as a hate crime.

At the restaurant, Snipes got a text about a death in his family and needed to leave the restaurant quickly, he said. As he headed out, he accidentally knocked over a drink, he said. “A table near us audibly started making pretty gross comments about the two of us like, ‘White faggots, spilling drinks,'” Snipes said. “I don’t let anyone talk to me like that. I went over there and asked, ‘What did you say about us?'” he added. The man knocked Snipes to the ground and started kicking his face and spine, knocking loose one of his teeth, snapping the cartilage in his ear and bruising his head, he said. He shouted, “Take that, faggot,” according to Snipes.

Remarkably, neither Snipes nor York-Adams were hospitalized, but it was for financial, not medical reasons.

The New Civil Rights Movement is reporting that the NYPD is not investigating the incident as an anti-gay hate crime and that no arrests have been made.

Two words: Fucking animal.

It takes a BIG man to hit people with a chair when their backs are turned.

  Danitra Roberts 3 hours ago

I work here and I was there last night when this happened it looked way worse in person

 

NYC’s Ali Forney Center For Homeless LGBT Kids Destroyed By Hurricane Sandy – PLEASE HELP

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The  Ali Forney Center, one of the few places in New York City that provides homeless LGBT kids with safe shelter and counseling was totally destroyed by Hurricane Sandy last week.

From Ali Forney Center Founder Carl Siciliano:

Yesterday we were finally able to inspect our drop-in center in Chelsea, half a block from the Hudson River. Our worst fears were realized; everything was destroyed and the space is uninhabitable. The water level went four feet high, destroying our phones, computers, refrigerator, food and supplies. 

This is a terrible tragedy for the homeless LGBT youth we serve there. This space was dedicated to our most vulnerable kids, the thousands stranded on the streets without shelter, and was a place where they received food, showers, clothing, medical care, HIV testing and treatment, and mental health and substance abuse services. Basically a lifeline for LGBT kids whose lives are in danger.
We are currently scrambling for a plan to provide care to these desperate kids while we prepare to ultimately move into a larger space that will better meet our needs. The NYC LGBT Center has very kindly and generously offered to let us temporarily use some of their space, and we hope to determine the viability of that on Monday.

We have been deluged with kind offers from people who wish to volunteer and donate goods. Unfortunately, we will have to provide our services in the time being in much smaller spaces that won’t accommodate volunteers or allow for much storage space. The best way people can reach out to help in this very challenging time is by making monetary donations. Please go to our website.

It is heartbreaking to see this space come to such a sad end. For the past seven years it has been a place of refuge to thousands of kids reeling from being thrown away by their parents for being LGBT. For many of these kids coming to our drop-in center provided  their first encounter with a loving and affirming LGBT community. I thank all of you for your care and support in a most difficult time.

 this latest hurricane news is especially heartbreaking since it  involves the most vulnerable of our community our own LGBT youth who have been through so much hardship and heartbreak already.

I know that everyone is pushed to the limits trying to do what they can and donate to the victims of Hurricane Sandy.  But the Ali Forney center is one of the few resources in New York City that homeless at risk youth have.  If everyone could just dig a bit deeper and help it would make a world of difference and just might help save a young gay persons life.

PLEASE, IF POSSIBLE, DONATE WHAT YOU CAN.  No donation is too small.

Three Men Arrested For NYC Anti-Gay Attacks In Chelsea and at The Stonewall Inn

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Matthew Francis,  Christopher Orlando, and Andrew Jackson have been arrested in NYC in connection with a pair of alleged ant-gay attacks against gay men in New York City this past weekend.

Just before midnight Friday in Chelsea a group of men were saying good-night and kissing and hugging each other good-bye when they were confronted by a group of several men who yelled anti-gay slurs at them and according to police, Andrew Jackson, and another unidentified man assaulted the men. Jackson allegedly hurled a metal garbage can into one victim’s head.

Then on Sunday night at the famous Stonewall Inn Matthew Francis and Christopher Orlando were in the bathroom  where they robbed and attacked the victim Benjamin Carver.  Francis asked Carver “What kind of bar is this?” The victim responded, “This is a gay bar.”

“Get away from me faggott! I don’t like gay people. Don’t pee next to me,” Francis yelled.

As Orlando blocked the door, Francis asked Carver for a dollar and then for $20, said Assistant District Attorney Kiran Singh.When Carver refused to fork over the money, Francis and Orlando tackled him and Francis punched him “multiple times” in the face, Singh said. The assault then spilled out of the restroom, patrons and bar staff chased the attackers outside, where cops responding to numerous 911 calls arrested the suspects, Singh said

I only wish they they would have caught up with them before the police and kicked the living shit out of gay bashers.