LGBT hate attack at a bar in Mexico City: several victims with cuts and bruises

La Cañita is a bar and seafood restaurant that also serves as a cultural center for the LGBT+ community in Mexico City. Last Saturday, two residents of the La Doctores neighborhood brutally attacked several people.

May 9, 2019

By Milena Pafundi, from Mexico City

La Cañita is a bar and seafood restaurant that also serves as a cultural hub for the LGBT+ community in Mexico City. Last Saturday, two residents of the Colonia Doctores neighborhood brutally attacked several people. There were at least six victims with bruises and cuts, including both employees and customers.

One of the assailants has been identified. He has a criminal record. The complaint was filed at Agency 8 of the Public Prosecutor's Office CUH-8. The complaint alleges violent attacks, attempted robbery, property damage, and lesbophobia, homophobia, and transphobia.

[READ ALSO: 3 trans women murdered in one month in Mexico City]

“He kept harassing me, saying he wanted to sleep with me and that we needed to have a serious talk because we had to pay our rent in the neighborhood. He extorted me,” Diana Torres, a lesbian writer and performer and one of the bar's owners along with her partner, DJ and singer Ali Gardoqui, one of the founders of the group Kumbia Queers, told Presentes.

“I was sitting at the bar when one of the guys came up and just started grabbing bottles and attacking the cashier and the bartender. I told him, ‘Hey, you can’t do that,’ and he turned around and said, ‘And who are you, faggot?’ and started attacking me. The bartenders told me to back off and that they would restrain him. They started talking to him, telling him that Diana was coming, ‘We can’t give you beer until Diana says so.’ That’s when he snapped and threw one of the bottles he’d stolen, and it smashed against the wall,” Marian, a trans customer, told Presentes.

"We need support"

The bartender, Thania , has several cuts on her head and needed stitches on her hand as well. The cook, Andi, was hit by projectiles. Neither of them can work for the next ten days and they are suffering from panic attacks, they told Presentes.

When Diana Torres tried to intervene and stop the attackers, they threw her to the ground and beat her.

Miguel Ángel, a customer, intervened and was hit, and his friend Bruno was hit with a bottle.

“In the complaint, we requested several immediate measures. One of them is a restraining order, because we are afraid, our lives are in danger. Or that he be fitted with a bracelet that will alert the police every time he approaches La Cañita, so the police will come,” Diana told Presentes.

The day after the attack, at 7 a.m., neighbors alerted them that part of the roof and the bar's sign were on fire.

WhatsApp group to support La Cañita, so that whenever something happens, a group can form to communicate and give notice when we see that things are bad or that we are very alone.

“If we want to stay in this place, we can’t continue alone,” added Diana Torres.

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