Report: Gay College Professor Says He Was Attacked, Beaten at San Francisco Pride as Bystanders Merely Looked On

An associate professor at UC Berkeley says he was thrown to the ground and brutally beaten by a gang of "around five" people during Pride in the heart of San Francisco – and no one came to help him.

Damon Young, who teaches French and Film & Media, was enjoying Pride on June 28 when he decided to walk his dog home. But as he crossed a park full of picnickers and passers-by, a loitering group of around half a dozen "men and women" suddenly accused his dog of urinating on their shoes.

This, Young shared in a July 1 Facebook post, was "total nonsense," but when he tried to tell the group that, one of the young men began to strike him in the chest. Losing his balance, Young fell to the ground, and the man was instantly on him, repeatedly pummeling him in the face while "his friends cheered him on," the post said.

Young said he called out for help, but to no avail. The beating simply continued.

"I never saw so much rage and anger in someone's face, occasioned by nothing- by my very being, my way of walking past them with my dog, my being alone and gay and happy and at that moment," Young said of his alleged attacker in his description of the terrifying ordeal.

As he was being assaulted, Young shared, he "heard an onlooker say 'oh i don't know what is going on between those two' as if it was an 'all sides' situation."

That witness did nothing to intervene, and neither did anyone else until the beating abruptly stopped.

"I suppose it Is easier to claim ignorance as a way to justify not getting involved (we know this from how people react to genocide)," Young wrote in his post. "But the fact that he and so many others saw what was happening and chose to do nothing is one of the things that has been hardest to get over in the aftermath."

Added Young: "There were hundreds of people around, it was broad daylight. I lay there holding my swollen jaw and someone casually gave me a beer to ice it but nobody offered any other comfort or solace or assistance. Nobody offered to help me find my friends, find a community officer or get me medical care. My phone wasn't working and I couldn't call anyone, nobody offered to call."

Not only did onlookers refuse to help him, Young wrote, but so did a group of firefighters he approached. The firefighters, he wrote, "looked at me like I was crazy or high as I told them I had been gay bas[h]ed at Pride, and told me blithely that there were police officers in the park (which actually seemed not to be the case) and I should go look for one."

Eventually, Young made his way home and got in touch with his boyfriend. Only then did anyone come to his aid, as his boyfriend returned home right away and took Young to the hospital.

A CAT scan showed how lucky Young had been, suffering only "soft tissue" damaged that left him swollen, bruised, and disoriented," but did not require a hospital stay.

But a deeper injury lingered.

"In the midst of Pride, in broad daylight, I was gay bashed by a group and nobody intervened, no officers were to be found, and San Francisco Fire Department officers received me with apathy and an unwillingness to help," Young posted.

"Any form of violence against another human being is at any time intolerable, but a gay bashing in the midst of Pride in the city at the historical heart of gay activism with a Democratic mayor seems especially surreal and unconscionable."

"Is the discourse of 'community' something real [or] just a slogan?"

The San Francisco Chronicle said that "Young filed a police report about a week after the attack," and added that the department had told the publication that "Every aspect, including whether this was hate motivated, is being explored in [an] open and active investigation." (Story is behind a paywall.)

The Chronicle also relayed that Young had been in touch with the San Francisco Fire Department about the alleged "unprofessional behavior on the part of its employees." The fire department told the Chronicle that it was "reviewing" Young's allegations.