MIAMI – Raul Marti said he was trying to get home from work Wednesday night, but instead, he was rushed to a hospital after he was brutally beaten and insulted with gay slurs.
"He targeted me," Marti said of his alleged attacker.
Marti said he was waiting at a bus stop on Biscayne Boulevard near 64th Street in Miami when a man, identified as Eric Pinkney, 44, noticed Marti was having a coughing fit, as he's is still recovering from throat cancer.
He said Pinkney asked him why he was coughing so much.
"I looked at him and I said, 'I'm fine. Leave me alone, please. Go on your way,'" Marti said.
Marti said he kept coughing and Pinkney kept talking.
"(He) started saying things like, 'That's the problem with you fa----s. You're all sick,'" Marti said Pinkney told him.
Marti, again, said he asked for the suspect to leave him alone.
"That's when he proceeded on. 'That's right, you little f---ing fa----, keep on begging me. I like when fa----s beg me,'" Marti said.
Marti said he went to get his phone and call the police.
"He hit me, and then he hit me one more time, and then I fell to the ground," Marti said.
Some people who were passing by ran over and scared the suspect off, but a police officer passing by quickly tracked him down, Marti said.
Marti spent the night in the hospital and is now recovering with a broken nose, multiple stitches and injuries all over his face. He said he wants his attacker put away.
"I'm a human being, not a piece of garbage, and nobody has the right to put their hands on me or hurt me that way, no matter what I am," he said.
Pinkney faces a charge of aggravated battery, but Marti plans on insisting the state attorney's office add charges related to a hate crime.