MIAMI – Miami police are investigating a brutal beating in the city’s Coconut Grove neighborhood and aren’t ruling out the possibility that it was a hate crime.
Speaking via Zoom from his hospital bed, Greg Breidenbach told Local 10 News that the attack happened over the weekend near the intersection of Douglas Road and Florida Avenue as he walked home from Oasis Lounge.
“I have taken this route thousands of times,” Breidenbach said. “I walk everywhere, and I’ve never had a mishap or anything. I’ve always made it home safely.”
But the weekend attack would become the exception.
He quickly blacked out, but recalls the attackers, two men, using a homophobic slur as they beat him.
“I knew I was punched, kept getting punched in the face, kicked in the back and they just kept calling me f----t,” Breidenbach said.
Breidenbach said the men only took a crucifix necklace he was wearing, but not his wallet. Police found him unresponsive with extensive injuries.
“What I have heard from the cops, they found me barely clothed, like in the streets,” Breidenbach said. “My cheekbone has completely shattered. My orbital bone is completely cracked in half. My nasal cavity is fractured. My nasal cavity is separated from from the sinus cavity.”
Breidenbach said he won’t let this attack ruin his positive spirit, but he feels recent rhetoric and even some recent legislation that he feels is anti-LGBTQ, make him and others targets of violence.
“Unfortunately, it was such a brutal attack that I thought it was my responsibility to get out there and let other people know. It’s just not safe right now,” he said. “You’ve got to be aware of what’s going on around you.”
A spokesperson for the Miami Police Department said officers were in the area Wednesday looking for evidence and said detectives are looking into whether Breidenbach was targeted because of his sexual orientation.
Anyone with information about the crime is asked to call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477.