Nine-Year Sentence for Man Convicted in Chair Attack at NYC Restaurant

Nine-Year Sentence for Man Convicted in Chair Attack at NYC Restaurant
Bayna-Lekheim El-Amin
Bayna-Lekheim El-Amin
Bayna-Lekheim El-Amin had been convicted of assaulting a gay couple at the Dallas BBQ restaurant in Chelsea.

BY TRUDY RING
SEPTEMBER 15 20
16 3:39 PM EDT
1.5KSHARES
Bayna-Lekheim El-Amin, the gay man convicted of assaulting two other gay men at New York City’s Dallas BBQ restaurant in May 2015, was sentenced today to nine years in prison and three years of supervision after his release, Gay City News reports.

El-Amin had initially claimed he was defending himself in the altercation with Jonathan Snipes and Ethan York-Adams at the Chelsea restaurant. Indeed, surveillance video showed Snipes starting the fight. But El-Amin, according to prosecutors, continued the fight after Snipes had given up. Additional video showed him “hitting the two men on their heads with a heavy wooden chair as they stand with their backs to him,” the paper notes.





“The case boils down to this defendant took it too far,” prosecutor Leah Saxtein said during the sentencing hearing, according to Gay City News. “He decided to get revenge. … He used a dangerous instrument to strike them in the most vulnerable part of the human body.”

As the case was investigated, Snipes said El-Amin had used homophobic slurs toward him and York-Adams, who was his partner at the time. But El-Amin objected to early media characterizations of the incident as a hate crime, as he is gay too. El-Amin also said racism was at play in the coverage and in the charges against him, as he is black and the other two men are white. The case was not prosecuted as a hate crime, and in May of this year a jury found El-Amin guilty of two counts of first-degree attempted assault and two counts of second-degree assault.

“The jury rejected your claim of self-defense,” Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Arlene Goldberg said at the sentencing. “That you did not cause serious physical injury to [Snipes and York-Adams] was only a matter of luck.”

Some observers agreed with El-Amin that he was a victim of racism. A widely shared social media post accused Snipes and York-Adams of exploiting white privilege, and many of the people attending the sentencing wore light blue armbands or headbands as a symbol of support for El-Amin, Gay City News notes. He also spoke at the hearing, describing his accusers as “drunk white men who felt they were entitled to swing on me.”

But the judge did not agree. “I know that you want to cast this, your supporters as well, as an issue about race,” Goldberg said. “I don’t see it that way. … When you picked up that chair, that was a criminal act that cannot be excused.”

El-Amin’s lawyer had sought the minimum sentence, three and a half years, for the charges on which he was convicted. The prosecution sought 12 years plus five years of post-release supervision. El-Amin has a record of 29 felony convictions across several states, Saxtein said.

El-Amin contended he shouldn’t be judged on his past behavior and that he is now a different man, involved in community service. “Yes, I have a past record,” he said in court today, according the paper. “I own up to that. I paid for everything I’ve done.”

Snipes and York-Adams did not attend the hearing. They are no longer a couple, and York-Adams now lives in Tennessee, while Snipes still lives in New York City, Gay City News reports.

Why does the race matter? Get that hit thread I guess.

Dangerous Truths: An Agitation of Black Participation in the LGBT Community



Where beer flows or hugs are given, you can often forget as a Black person, that you are always in a certain amount of danger. Sometimes, it is physical, sometimes it is emotional, but the danger is always present. It is important to be cognizant of this danger, even when you are in communities that would prefer for you to think you are safe. There are communities that would prefer for you to believe you’ve found solace. This is a lie.

As a younger person in the LGBT community, I used to believe I found escape. I was conscious of the dominating systems that existed in the world, but believed, in bars and conferences, that those dominating systems were suspended. I believed these folks, because they experienced oppression because of gender and/or sexuality, were safe and would almost protect me from the domination that existed outside of those walls. They could relate. They weren’t just white people, they were LGBT white people. Therefore, they couldn’t possibly do harm towards me because they knew too well what harm feels like, and these LGBT white people were dedicated to ensuring no one was harmed ever again for any reason. This was a lie.

I can’t honestly recall a specific moment that my disillusionment with the lie of the benevolent and radical LGBT white person was fully formed, and I think this is because it was gradual. There was not a moment where I realized that White people inside the LGBT community were no safer than cis-heterosexual white people; there were simply bricks laid on top of each other that made this wall of truth that would not only be ridiculous for me to ignore, but dangerous. The bricks of evidence are plentiful, but I can feel each one. I can feel each one, not because of obsession, but because my flesh needs to remember the dangers exist in order to survive.

I have thought experiments where I imagine myself at the Stonewall riots. It is 1969 and perhaps I am reincarnated as a New York City rat. I think of the first fingers that gripped around the brick that initiated the riots. I think of how that decision must have been informed with a familiar type of disillusionment that I think a lot of black people in the LGBT community experience. It must have been informed by the realization that no relief exists when you are doubly and triply oppressed. When you realize the brick walls you found celebration in are not yours and the brick walls that cops push your face against are not yours. This type of frustration, I imagine, could give one the strength to pick up a brick and throw it. Let it lead to death or chaos or revolution, it does not matter, because it was never yours to begin with. In this thought experiment, I run into the sewer and I return to reality. I remember the trailer to the Stonewall film that was supposed to recount these events and how the first brick was in the hands of a cis-gender white man. This possibility seems far-fetched at best when you think, even despite queerness, all that is at the feet of a cis-gender white man. In that decision to throw that brick, he’d have to be willing to die and leave the interlocking systems that privilege him. In that decision to throw that brick, he’d have to be okay with creating a type of chaos that might see him uncomfortable in ways that his whiteness lets him transcend. In that decision to throw that brick, he would have to be ready for a revolution, when in reality and traditionally, white gay men have only wanted to be able to fully participate in the dominating and oppressive systems while holding hands with their fetish or equally powerful white male counterpart. This does not concern the filmmakers of the film because the idea is not to represent or liberate through film, but to erase and reposition white people (even the ones in the LGBT community) as just as courageous, strong, and powerful as their cis-heterosexual counterparts.

James Baldwin explored his observations around White people in the LGBT community, “Their reaction seems to me in direct proportion to their sense of feeling cheated of the advantages which accrue to white people in a white society. There's an element, it has always seemed to me, of bewilderment and complaint. Now that may sound very harsh, but the gay world as such is no more prepared to accept black people than anywhere else in society.” This is the truth, and any time black people in the LGBT community attempt to deny this truth, we are put in danger both intimately and globally. It can be casual, like Marc Jacobs appropriating hairstyles that belong to the black community or being rejected (or fetishized) for your flesh.

You can also be Bayna Lekheim El-Amin, the black gay man that was found guilty for defending himself against another white gay man in a bar. In moments, we observed El-Amin no longer to be a black gay man, but a “hulking brute”, as described by New York Daily News. In a moment of convenience, Bayna Lekheim El-Amin was stripped of his membership in this precious LGBT community and was dehumanized, even with this incident being framed as an anti-gay hate crime despite El-Amin’s sexuality. Jonathon Snipes, the gay white man, found it convenient to erase El-Amin’s full identity, not just because he can, but because Snipes must beg for the acceptance of whiteness he felt like he lost. He must show that despite his transgression against the hetero-patriarchy through his sexual practices, he is still willing to participate in white violence. Jonathon Snipes, with his actions, has shown the imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy that he is willing to fight for what his whiteness has entitled him to despite queerness. He is willing to prove he can dominate and destroy a black body and life, just like his cis-heterosexual counterparts, and he succeeded. The truth is, this is the reality for most white LGBT members, and there is an incessant desire to participate in domination despite their gender, sexual or romantic practices. The idea that white people in the LGBT community have an inherent desire, informed by their sexual/gender experiences, to liberate others or find equity is a lie. A lie, if believed by black people in the LGBT community, can cost you your life. This is dangerous and this is the truth.

Another sensationalized title for clicks, seek help ****

And for anyone who doesnt feel like reading a white gay man went out of his way to smack a black gay man with his purse and when the black man retaliated he cried foul and had the man locked up for 9 years.

Idgi, he's clearly at fault for hitting them with a chair, even if they did start it

Can I have his ticket to the Formation World Tour?

''Man gets 9 years of prison for attacking other man''

that works better huh?


I think 9 years is a bit too much

If it wasn't prosecuted as a hate crime and he has a prior record this is honestly his fault for hitting them over the head with a big ass wooden chair. What does he think this is, Smackdown vs Raw? Also, you obviously can't claim self defense if you hit an unarmed person with their back turned. He really deserved this L tbh.

Then why didn't the black gay man simply get security or an officer to file a complaint
Why did he hit them with a chair

Because when the video first surfaced months ago, everyone thought the black man started the fight and were calling him every type of thug and other obscenity.

This thread is biased and attempting to start a racial debate over something that shouldn't have a racial debate in it

The law is that you don't take the law into your own hands, no matter how much you disagree with it. Assaulting someone with a chair is against the law, period

Idk I think nine years is a bit much, but with a past record of 29 felonies and the fact that he hit them with a wooden chair while their backs were turned? Yeah, he deserved some type of punishment. But so does the man who started the fight tbh.

The obsession with race. You hit a bitch with a chair, you get arrested regardless of your race.

When a gay black man is sentenced to 9 years for a "hate crime" for defending himself while three white man can actually commit a legit hate crime against a gay black man and blind him in one eye and get off with just community services, in the same state, it explains why race matters


Hasidic Jews who beat and blinded gay black man are handed just 150 hours community service - and are trying to avoid doing it in 'culturally diverse' NYC area



Pinchas Braver and Abraham Winkler admitted taking part in beating
They pleaded guilty to unlawful imprisonment and were spared jail
Both were charged with gang hate crime and facing lengthy jail time
Taj Patterson was left blind in one eye after beating in December 2013
He says he was walking down the street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, when the group beat him while shouting homophobic slurs

Two Hasidic men who admitted to brutally beating a gay black man until he was blinded in one eye were sentenced to just 150 hours of community service – but are trying to get out of doing it in a ‘culturally diverse’ neighborhood.
Fashion student Taj Patterson was left permanently blind in his right eye after being beaten by a group of Hasidic men as he walked down the street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in December 2013.
Pinchas Braver, 22, and Abraham Winkler, 42, who were part of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish patrol group, were charged with gang hate crime and facing up to 25 years in prison, the New York Post reported.
But instead, they pleaded guilty to unlawful imprisonment in a plea deal that meant they avoided jail in exchange for three years of probation, paying $1,400 restitution and performing the 150 hours of community service in a ‘culturally diverse’ placement.
Two others had their cases dropped, but Mayer Herkovic, will go on trial next week.
But the men told the court last week that they wanted to do the community service at Chai Lifeline, a group that works with Jewish children with life-threatening illness.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz4KYkUcQKR
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What a repulsive way to smear a person who the author has never met. His skull was shattered by a chair to the head and he reported it to police. Somehow this sicko writer turned that into a white supremacist who wanted to prove he could destroy a black man...

Good. There was no need to hit him with a chair. He should have just punch the 'white' guy and that will have been enough.

ugh, awful. there is absolutely a racist element to this case and to this sentence (i don't believe a white gay man would get 9 years for a bar brawl, i just don't). at the same time, i do believe el amin deserves to go to prison. even if he didn't start it, hitting someone in the head with a chair while their back is turned is beyond a normal fight/self defense.

9 years seems excessive considering when a black gay man was beaten and blinded by two Jewish Men and they only got 150 hours of community service, or no?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...y-service.html

Just posted the same thing.