Homeless man charged with hate crimes for defecating on two LGBTQ+ Pride flags: NYPD
A homeless man has been charged with several hate crimes for defecating on an LGBTQ+ Pride flag and wiping his behind with another at a Manhattan restaurant, according to the NYPD.
Fred Innocent, 45, walked into Buceo 95, a tapas bar on W. 95th St. and Broadway on the Upper West Side, on April 15 at about 10 a.m. as the day crew was setting up and grabbed two rainbow flags off of a table, cops said. He relieved himself on one of the banners, according to police, then cleaned himself with another.
“This was a total hate crime,” restaurant owner Courtney Barroll said after hearing of the arrest. “He came in within 15 minutes of us opening up the restaurant. He could have gone to Popeyes or McDonald’s around the corner. He could have used napkins.”
She said that she puts the flags up in the restaurant to show that she’s welcoming to the gay community.
“We support everyone no matter what kind of background, race or lifestyle,” Barroll told the Daily News.
She said that she felt Innocent zeroed in on the flags because of intolerance.
“He took the only two flags in the area and he used one to defecate and the other to wipe himself,” she said.
Restaurant porter Enrique Trujillo discovered the mess as he cleaned the dining shed.
“I smelled something really bad,” Trujillo said shortly after the incident.
“When I started to clean near the corners — that’s when I saw it,” he said.
The man carried out his disgusting act beneath a surveillance camera, Trujillo said.
Barroll said that hate crimes detectives worked tirelessly to track Innocent down.
“I want to thank the NYPD detectives for catching him,” she said. “They worked so hard on this.”
Innocent, whose address comes back to a Harlem shelter, was charged with burglary, harassment and trespassing, all as hate crimes. He was also hit with additional trespassing charges and burglary, not as a hate crime.
He was arrested in Midtown and was awaiting arraignment as of Wednesday evening.
“If I’m asked to go to court, I’m going to press for the maximum charge possible,” she said.
Innocent has had several prior run-ins with the law.
In January of this year, he was arrested for burglary after swiping a purse from an employees-only area of a Manhattan hotel, cops said.
Last October, he was busted for grand larceny and in 2007 and 1998, he was hit with felony assault charges in the Bronx, according to the NYPD.
