No Help For Victims of Florida Hate Crime

Last week, Immokalee, Fla., residents Manuel Galan and his friend Cirildo Soliz -- both of whom are openly gay -- were jumped by five males, in an incident the Collier County Sheriff's Office is calling a possible hate crime.

"It was right in the middle of the street," Galan, 27, said, as quoted by the Naples Daily News. "People were walking all around us. No one stopped. No one did anything. It hurts me. I knew some of the people."

Both Galan and Soliz, 21, were beaten on their faces, ribs, and limbs and bombarded with antigay slurs.

Galan, who has lived in Immokalee most of his life and says he knows the mothers of some of attackers, is now afraid to venture out his home as one of the assailants reportedly told him, "I'm going to kill you and I know where you live."

"I just don't understand why it had to happen that way," Galan said. "I'm a very respectable person, I don't ever do anything someone doesn't want done to them."

Read the full story here.