A 21-year-old man is being indicted on a charge of attempted murder as a hate crime for allegedly opening fire on three men in Brooklyn last month after taunting them with anti-gay slurs, officials say.
Matthew Smith was initially charged with first-degree assault in the Sept. 29 shooting that wounded a 22-year-old man. He faces 25 years in prison if convicted of attempted murder as a hate crime.
According to police, the victim was dressed as a woman and was walking down the street with two other men in Bushwick when Smith and two friends approached them and allegedly made anti-gay comments. The victim and two friends began walking away, according to investigators, and the suspects followed them for a block, at which point the three started walking away even faster.
Still they were followed, according to the indictment. After they rounded a corner, Smith allegedly fired six shots, hitting one of the three in the buttocks. The man who was shot was treated at a hospital and released. Smith and the two people with him were arrested later that day; the suspects not accused of firing the weapon face menacing and harassment as hate crime charges.
Smith has been held without bail since his arraignment in September. The other two suspects were released without bail. Information on attorneys for the defendants wasn't immediately available.
Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson condemned the violence.
"In Brooklyn, everyone, regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation or sexual identity, must be treated with dignity and respect," Thompson said in a statement. "The victims in this case were minding their own business and had every right to believe they could safely walk the streets."
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Crimes against the LGBT community are up in New York overall, according to police and advocacy groups. Police say 29 anti-gay attacks were reported between January 2013 and May 2013, more than double the number reported in the same period the prior year.
Two weeks following the shooting in which Smith was charged, a transgender woman walking on Bushwick Avenue with a friend was punched and kicked by a group of four men, then struck in the head with a piece of Plexiglas one of the suspects threw at her. The woman suffered a traumatic brain injury and remains hospitalized in critical condition.
In 2008 in Brooklyn, an Ecuadorean man was beaten to death in Bushwick by two assailants who allegedly yelled anti-gay and anti-immigrant slurs. One of the attackers was convicted of murder as a hate crime and sentenced to 37 years to life in prison.
