The Stonewall Inn, birthplace of The LGBTQ movement🌈 🌈, was attacked with baseball bat; Teen has been charged!
The Stonewall Inn repaired its broken window after a teen bashed in the window with a baseball bat early Saturday in Greenwich Village.
A teenager irate he was thrown out of Greenwich Village’s historic Stonewall Inn, the birthplace of the LGBT civil rights movement, bashed in the bar’s window with a baseball bat early Saturday, officials said.
The attack did nearly $7,000 worth of damage to the window and the bar’s iconic Stonewall Inn neon sign, authorities said
William Gomez, 19, was hanging out in the bar with co-workers when he was thrown out of the legendary Christopher St. watering hole by a bouncer, according to cops and Gomez’s mother.
He allegedly returned with a baseball bat about 4:30 a.m. and smashed the bar’s window with it, punching holes in the glass and damaging the neon sign that sits in the window..
Cops arrested Gomez near the scene, charging him with criminal mischief and reckless endangerment.
Gomez was freed after his arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court on Saturday evening.
He is not facing hate crime charges since it does not appear that the attack was motivated by the bar’s significance in the gay rights movement, sources said.
Gomez’s mother, who declined to give her name, told the Daily News her son isn’t gay and his girlfriend is expecting their child soon. She said he went to the bar with a group of co-workers.
She says her son called her Saturday from lockup, claiming a bouncer had punched him in the face before he was thrown out of the bar.
“He said that a bodyguard was messing with one of his co-workers and he told him to stop,” she said. “He then thought the conversation was over but at one point he was punched in the face.”
“He’s a quiet boy,” his mother said. “He doesn’t get into trouble.”
Police sources say he has been arrested several times before. He was charged with assault in Brooklyn last year, was accused of criminal impersonation in 2015 and was arrested on a robbery charge in 2014, the sources said.
The broken window and sign were repaired when the Stonewall Inn reopened on schedule at 2 p.m. on Saturday.
The bartender and manager on duty Saturday afternoon said they weren’t working when the incident happened.
The Stonewall Inn became famous in 1969, when a police raid sparked a melee between cops and gay patrons. The confrontation and ensuing riots sparked the movement to secure rights for gays and lesbians.
Former President Barack Obama declared the Stonewall Inn a national monument in 2016.
"Stonewall will be our first national monument to tell the story for the struggle for LGBT rights," Obama announced at the time.
A year earlier, the city gave the Stonewall Inn landmark status.
