Police say musicians stabbed for wearing skinny jeans are victims of a hate crime

(Image credit: Facebook.com/BlakeAbbey)

published 24 June 2015

Three Sacramento, California, musicians were attacked Sunday by an assailant who called them anti-gay slurs for wearing skinny jeans, and now the assault has been reclassified as a hate crime.

Alex Lyman and Weston Richmond, guitarists in the Sacramento rock band Slaves, and Blake Abbey, lead singer of another Sacramento band called Musical Charis, were all stabbed in the attack. The assailant came up without provocation, they said, and called Lyman a homophobic slur before attacking him for his sartorial choice.

The suspect, identified as Timothy Brownell, was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and possessing a firearm, but released on bond. Sacramento police reclassified the attack as a hate crime on Monday and issued an arrest warrant, and Brownell turned himself in Tuesday night. On Facebook Monday, Abbey wrote from the hospital that "we were in the wrong place at the wrong time," and said his arm "was completely mangled by a 7-8 inch Rambo knife." On Tuesday, he shared that he forgave the alleged attacker and wants to "move forward and live."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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