A New York social worker has a broken jaw after he was punched in the face by a man yelling anti-gay slurs in Brooklyn on Saturday, police say.
The 27-year-old outreach worker for the city's Department of Social Services was undergoing surgery Monday for a fractured jaw suffered in a weekend attack that police are investigating as a possible hate crime.
The victim was ordering food with three of his friends at Crown Fried Chicken near Franklin and Fulton avenues when they were approached by a group of people in Bedford-Stuyvesant around 4 a.m. Saturday, police have said.
The group began making anti-gay comments to the victim and his friends and when the victim tried to de-escalate the situation, he was punched in the face, according to police.
The punch broke his jaw.
Mayor de Blasio said Monday he had spoken with the worker earlier in the morning and the man was in good spirits.
The NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating the attack.
