Police have listed an October beating of a gay Latino man outside his apartment in Columbia Heights as a hate crime based on his sexual orientation and ethnicity.

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The victim told police four or five black men in their twenties shouted anti-gay and anti-Latino slurs at him before one of the men assaulted him. The victim was knocked unconscious and suffered broken teeth, a facial wound and a concussion.

It happened October 27 on the 1400 block of Meridian Pl., NW.

The victim said although the men took his messenger bag, they made no attempt to rob him of his wallet or cell phone. Because his bag was found in a yard one block away he doesn’t think their motive was to rob him.

David Perez, president of the D.C.-based Latino LGBT History Project and a friend of the victim, contacted the police Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit after learning that the initial police report didn’t list the attack as a hate crime.

Perez said the attackers called the victim a “fag” and a “spic” at the time of the assault.

The Washington Blade originally reported this story.