Police are searching for the man who threatened a 23-year-old aboard an MTA bus during an anti-LGBTQ hate crime in Brooklyn on Tuesday morning.
The victim, who is a member of the LGBTQ community, told police that she boarded the B46 Bus on the morning of Oct. 24, when the suspect sat next to her and began making hateful comments about her sexual orientation at around 5 a.m, cops said.
The bus continued its route between Marine Park and the Williamsburg waterfront, but the situation inside the coach soon escalated — as the suspect allegedly threatened to “cut” the victim, and displayed what appeared to be a knife.
After becoming “fearful for her life,” the 23-year-old managed to move away from the weapon-wielding suspect uninjured and called for help, according to police.
NYPD officers rushed to intercept the bus in the Flatlands section of Brooklyn, but the suspect had already fled by the time cops arrived.
No arrests have yet been made, and the NYPD Hate Crimes Unit is investigating the incident, a Police Department spokesperson said.
So far this year, the NYPD has recorded 400 hate crimes on the streets of the five boroughs, with 123 of those incidents occurring in Brooklyn, according to the most recent Police Department data.
The number of hate crimes recorded through nearly 10 months of this year marks a decline from the 520 bigotry-motivated infractions during the same timeframe last year.
Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the CrimeStoppers website, or on Twitter @NYPDTips.
All calls are strictly confidential.
