According to Channel 2 Action News– A young couple is recovering from severe burns after police say a man threw burning water on them — because they are gay.
The victims told the Atlanta news station that they were sound asleep, resting after a long day at work, when they were attacked.
Marquez Tolbert said:
“The pain doesn’t let you sleep. It’s just, like, it’s excruciating, 24 hours a day, and it doesn’t go anywhere. It doesn’t dial down, anything. It’s just there.”
Tolbert believes that the second and third-degree burns along his neck, back and arms are scars of hate.
Tolbert asked:
“Why else would you pour boiling hot water on somebody?”
The 21-year-old and his boyfriend, Anthony Gooden, were severely burned last month when the men say Gooden’s mother’s boyfriend walked in on them sleeping in Gooden’s College Park apartment and poured scalding water all over them.
Tolbert said:
“I can barely think straight because the burning, the stinging is everywhere.”
Memorial Hospital undergoing surgery that took skin from his thigh to replace skin on his back.
Gooden got out the hospital on Friday.
Martin Blackwell, 48, remains in the Fulton County Jail, charged with two counts of aggravated battery.
Tolbert said:
“Martin pulled me up and said, ‘Get out of my house with all that gay. I couldn’t stop screaming.”
Even though he said he wouldn’t put up with the couple in his house, Blackwell did not live in that apartment. It belonged to Gooden and his mother, but Blackwell was frequently visiting.
According to a police report, Blackwell said he was disgusted by the men’s relationship:
“They’ll be all right. It was just a little hot water on them.”
Tolbert asked:
“Like, where was your head at? Why would you do this?”
An Atlanta Police Department LGBT liaison assisted in the case to make sure Blackwell did not make bond.
Although they don’t exist in the state of Georgia, the liaison said federal hate crime charges are a possibility in the case, and an upcoming hearing will address that.
See a picture of Anthony Gooden since the horrific attack.
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