The Stonewall Inn known to many as the birth of the gay rights movement had its front window smashed in with a baseball bat early Saturday morning, causing over $7,000 worth of damage to the window and the bar’s iconic Stonewall Inn neon sign, according to the NYPD.
William Gomez, 19, was hanging out in the bar with co-workers when he was thrown out of the legendary Christopher St. bar by a bouncer.
Gomez returned with a baseball bat about 4:30 a.m. and smashed the bar’s window with it, punching holes in the glass and damaging the neon sign that sits in the window.
Gomez’s mother, who declined to give her name, told the Daily News her son isn’t gay and his girlfriend is expecting their child soon. She said he went to the bar with a group of co-workers.
She says her son called her Saturday from the 100 Center Street lockup, claiming a bouncer had punched him in the face before he was thrown out of the bar.
“He said that a bodyguard was messing with one of his co-workers and he told him to stop,” she said. “He then thought the conversation was over but at one point he was punched in the face.”
“He’s a quiet boy,” his mother said. “He doesn’t get into trouble.”
Police sources say he has been arrested several times before. He was charged with assault in Brooklyn last year, was accused of criminal impersonation in 2015 and was arrested on a robbery charge in 2014, the sources said.
Gomez has been charged with reckless endangerment, criminal possession of a weapon and criminal mischief.