The New York City Police Department is investigating a suspected anti-white hate crime that was captured by surveillance cameras at a Bronx pizzeria two weeks ago.
The victim, 60-year-old Bronx man Chris Bilcik, suffered a broken eye socket and a torn retina when a man attacked him for being white, he says.
Bilcik told NBC New York 4 that his friends initially figured he was attacked for his sexual orientation upon hearing of the incident.
“‘Oh my God you got gay-bashed?” Bilcik said his friends asked him. “No! I didn’t get gay-bashed! I got bashed because I was white!”
The victim claimed the man who attacked him, who has yet to be identified by authorities, was yelling about how evil white people are before assaulting him.
The would-be assailant “turns around and starts pointing to me,” recalled Bilcik. “And he’s talking to the people at the table about how white people are the devils of the world.”
“You’re a white boy, you’re not a man,” the man repeatedly said, pointing his finger at Bilcik.
As Bilcik was on his way out of the pizzeria, the man smacked him in the face. Bilcik reacted by throwing his coffee at the assailant. That’s when the man punched the victim, busting his eye.
“In a split-second, he did a Mike Tyson punch to my face, right to my eye socket and to my nose,” he said.
“Bilcik said he got very dizzy, and had severe double vision, with blood gushing from the eye. He staggered to the counter for help, and the suspect walked out. Bilcik said no one, not even the workers, helped as he stumbled through the shop and into the kitchen clutching at his bloody face and begging someone to call 911,” reports NBC New York 4.
Bilcik, a registered nurse, is “not going to live in fear” because the suspect has yet to be captured. “I’m going to be aware of my surroundings,” he said.
The victim has already undergone one retinal surgery and is scheduled for further medical work for his broken eye socket.
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