Attack on NYC Gay Journalist May Have Been Hate Crime, Police Say

Randy Gener suffered severe head trauma when he was assaulted while walking home from a party in Manhattan January 17.

Trudy Ring

Trudy Ring is The Advocate’s senior politics editor and copy chief. She has been a reporter and editor for daily newspapers and LGBTQ+ weeklies/monthlies, trade magazines, and reference books. She is a political junkie who thinks even the wonkiest details are fascinating, and she always loves to see political candidates who are groundbreaking in some way. She enjoys writing about other topics as well, including religion (she’s interested in what people believe and why), literature, theater, and film. Trudy is a proud “old movie weirdo” and loves the Hollywood films of the 1930s and ’40s above all others. Other interests include classic rock music (Bruce Springsteen rules!) and history. Oh, and she was a Jeopardy! contestant back in 1998 and won two games. Not up there with Amy Schneider, but Trudy still takes pride in this achievement.

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Trudy Ring

January 26 2014 1:30 PM EST

November 17 2015 5:28 AM EST

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Police are investigating a recent attack on a gay journalist in Manhattan as a possible hate crime, New York TV station WABC reports.

Randy Gener was attacked by a group of people at about 4 a.m. January 17 in midtown Manhattan, just about a block from his apartment, as he walked home from a party. He was found unconscious, with a severe head injury, in a pool of his own blood, the assailants apparently having left him for dead. He underwent brain surgery and is now in the intensive care unit at St. Luke's Hospital, listed in serious but stable condition.

"He can't answer the questions of what happened that night, he doesn't really exactly know who we are or where he's at sometimes," Gener's sister, Jessica Blair Driessler, told WABC, "and it's really painful to see him here the way that he is because he's the most articulate person." Gener is a respected journalist who has written for The New York Times, the Daily News, and many other publications.

Driessler and Kevin Nadal, a friend of Gener's, both called on anyone who witnessed the attack to come forward with information. In New York City, "over the past year, several gay men have not only been attacked, but murdered," Nadal pointed out. The New York Police Department's hate crimes task force is investigating the assault on Gener.