Gay man who went to meet someone from Grindr ambushed and attacked by teen gang with hammers
Marc Power was attacked by a group of teenagers after he arranged to meet a man on Grindr (Photos courtesy of Marc Power)
A gay man from Dublin, Ireland, has opened up about the horrifying homophobic attack he experienced this week after arranging a date through Grindr.
Marc Power was talking to a man on gay dating app Grindr and arranged to meet him on Tuesday evening at an Odeon Cinema in Dublin, RTÉ reports. However, when he arrived at the location, a group of teenage boys arrived wielding hammers.
“They tried to kill me with these weapons,” Power wrote in a Facebook post.
“They were trying to hit me on the head with hammers. They didn’t manage but I’m in the emergency room in hospital with facial injuries and my car was destroyed.”
Victim of homophobic attacks wants answers from Grindr.
“I’m OK but f**king angry. I need to find out why Grindr allows violent scum to open accounts.
“The police were helpful but hands tied as dumb teenage scum fear nothing,” he added.
He said that he hopes the boys responsible for the attack will be “rounded up” by police.
PinkNews has contacted Grindr for comment.
Power’s Facebook post has been liked more than 3,000 times and shared more than 2,000 times since he posted it last night.
They were trying to hit me on the head with hammers. They didn’t manage but I’m in the emergency room in hospital with facial injuries and my car was destroyed.
The post has also been shared widely on Twitter. Social Democrats councillor Chris Pender tweeted: “Folks last night this man was attacked because he’s gay because a group of homophobic scum bags set up a fake profile on @Grindr and used it to lure him into an ambush.
“As a gay man this terrifies and infuriates me all in one. We all use or have used Grindr for various different reasons and what ever those reasons are, are up to each and every one of us individually. It does not mean that we are open for attack but this has always been a reality for people like me.”
Pender also revealed that he was the victim of a homophobic attack in 2005 and called for robust hate crime legislation in Ireland.
“We need hate crime legislation to be able to do something about this so it can be dealt with and recorded appropriately and effectively.”
Another gay man was brutally attacked by a gang just weeks ago in Dublin.
Power’s attack comes just three weeks after another gay man was attacked in Dublin with steel bars for kissing his boyfriend goodbye outside of his flat.
28-year-old Brazilian national Danilo Matta was approached by a group of men and women who battered him and left him with a split lip.
Last week, the Department of Defence in Ireland announced that it is reviewing the Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act 1989 to look at what amendments need to be made to provide adequate protection.
It came at the same time as the country’s police force introduced a working hate crime definition as a part of its diversity and integration strategy.
It defines a hate crime as: “Any criminal offence which is perceived by the victim or any other person to, in whole or in part, be motivated by hostility or prejudice, based on actual or perceived age, disability, race, colour, nationality, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or gender.”
