Calgary police investigating attack on gay man as possible hate crime

Greg Johansen left bruised and bloodied after attack from behind

Calgary police are investigating an attack on a gay man as a possible hate crime.

Greg Johansen says he was helping another man find a cab just before the attack took place Aug 18, News Talk 770 reports. According to Johansen, the man, who said he was from out of town, asked him if he’s gay before they parted ways. Johansen told Sun News Network that the question came “out of the blue” and caught him “offguard.”

Johansen says he told the man he is gay and was walking away when he was allegedly grabbed from behind.

He says the man fled in a Checker cab.

Johansen alleges that his attacker said he didn’t “like all this gay shit around me.”

Johansen was left bruised and bloodied after the incident. He also has trouble seeing out of one eye, Sun News Network reports.

Inspector Ralph Veckenstedt says police are looking into the possibility that Johansen was targeted because he’s gay.

This latest incident follows news that a gay Newfoundland man was seriously injured and targeted with homophobic slurs after three men attacked him in St John’s Aug 15.

Natasha Barsotti is originally from Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean. She had high aspirations of representing her country in Olympic Games sprint events, but after a while the firing of the starting gun proved too much for her nerves. So she went off to university instead. Her first professional love has always been journalism. After pursuing a Master of Journalism at UBC , she began freelancing at Xtra West — now Xtra Vancouver — in 2006, becoming a full-time reporter there in 2008.

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