EXCLUSIVE: Gay man stabbed in apparent Bronx bias attack, for second time
BRONX (WABC) -- A Bronx man was stabbed on the street, not far from his home, but he says this is not the first time he's been attacked because he is gay.
Marquis Devereaux says he's angry and he's frustrated.
He was stabbed while anti-gay slurs were allegedly hurled at him.
This is not the first time he has been stabbed and not the first time he's been targeted, he says, because he's gay.
"I felt the blade, and when I felt the blade I stood still and I just looked at him," Devereaux said.
It's a moment when fear and panic usually take over.
But Devereaux says instead, in this moment, his survival instincts kicked in.
"What I felt was heat and what I felt was a sharp pain. And all I was telling myself was stay calm, stay alert," Devereaux said.
Devereaux says he was walking on Mermaid Lane in the Bronx early Sunday morning, around 3:30 a.m. when two men started spewing homophobic slurs at him.
Then one of them, he says, cut him with a switchblade, leaving him with eight stitches under his arm.
"I really wanted to protect myself," Devereaux said.
Incredibly, this has happened to Devereaux before.
In 2009, the superintendent of his Queens apartment building slashed his leg with a kitchen knife, while mocking his sexuality.
His assailant in that attack was convicted of a bias crime and was sentenced to three and half years in prison.
But on Sunday, on top of trying to survive the attack, Devereaux says the recent tragedies in Orlando and Dallas forced him into an ugly place, and forced him to question if anyone would care.
"Situations like Dallas go through your head and you just think, in this case its two black guys that have attacked each other and maybe the fact that I'm gay won't matter," Devereaux said.
Devereaux says that is partly why he's speaking out, because he wants his story to matter and for this not to happen to anyone else.
There have been no arrests made in this case.
The NYPD is investigating this case as a hate crime.
