A gay man in Virginia Beach, Va., says he was assaulted while working the graveyard shift at a local 7-11, and then fired because he is openly gay.
Bradley Kindrick told the local NBC affiliate, WAVY, that he was working the overnight shift at a 7-Eleven in Virginia Beach on March 24 when a man entered the convenience story twice around 2 a.m. According to Kindrick, the man pinned Kindrick against a wall, and assaulted him by forcibly kissing him.
"I was scared to death," Kindrick told WAVY. "I was scared that something was going to go further... that he was going to do something really bad to me."
Kindrick says he has had panic attacks since the incident, which was compounded further when 7-Eleven management fired him a few days after the assault.
7-Eleven corporate officials told WAVY that Kindrick was fired because he was drunk on the job -- a claim Kindrick denies.
"I think because I am openly homosexual, I think that they think maybe somebody would come in and do it again," Kindrick told WAVY. "I think that they made up a reason to let me go because they didn't want stuff like that happening at that store, and they felt like if they kept me, something like that would happen."
7-Eleven officials, in turn, denied that Kindrick's termination was related to his sexual orientation or the alleged assault.
Watch WAVY's report below:
Man claims he was fired for being gay