A city employee was attacked early Sunday morning in Sacramento’s LGBTQ+ district of Lavender Heights, where he said four men left him with minor injuries after shouting racist and anti-LGBTQ+ slurs.
The victim, Joseph Sais, told KCRA that he was walking home with a friend after a night out when the men started taunting, chasing, and eventually physically assaulting him, punching him repeatedly.
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“My face hit the ground, and they were still trying to get at me,”said Sais. “My shirt was bloodied. My shorts were bloody. Blood was everywhere.”
Sais then said he was able to run toward security workers at a nearby bar, where folks called the police. The suspects fled before officers arrived. Police then took a felony assault bias report from Sais. No arrests have been made.
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“How can this happen here?” Sais said. “How can this happen in a space where it’s for us? It’s for queer individuals to come feel supported.”
He added that he refuses to be intimidated into hiding. “I’m not going to live my life in fear because of what four individuals did.”
City Councilmember Phil Pluckebaum called the attack “absolutely infuriating.”
“This is not who Sacramento is or who we want to be,” Pluckebaum told ABC 10. He described Sais as “the sweetest person you would ever meet” and lamented that the city does not have the resources to provide the level of security some people feel is needed in the area.
“So really the only strategy at this point is for the neighborhood to organize a neighborhood watch.”
Security has become a particular concern because the city’s Rainbow Festival takes place this weekend in Lavender Heights.
The Sacramento LGBT Community Center said it is working with a variety of partners to improve safety in the area. It said this “includes strengthening communication among community members and public agencies, improving lighting and visibility, and advancing community-informed approaches to nighttime safety.”
“No one should have to wonder whether being visible themselves will make them a target,” the organization said in a statement. “Especially in a neighborhood our community has long considered home.”
The attack on Sais took place less than a year after gay man Alvin Prasad, 58, was assaulted in the same area. Prasad later died in the hospital from his injuries.
“As a community we’ve continued to reel from that loss, altogether and have been doing many things as a community and to increase our safety,” Romel Antonine, director of advocacy and training for the Sacramento LGBT Community Center, told ABC 10. “So of course hearing about another incident like this can definitely increase, our fear and hypersensitive, hyper awareness of what’s happening around us.”
Prasad’s daughter, Andrea Prasad, added that she thinks there are not enough safety measures in place in the neighborhood. “It breaks my heart to know that another violent assault happened in Lavender Heights for similar reasons that my father was assaulted for,” she said.
For now, with Rainbow Fest approaching, Antonine emphasized that folks should not go out alone and to “at least let folks know where you’re going, consider sharing your location.”
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