A woman has said she is “terrified” to return to a downtown area where a group of men injured her and her partner in an apparent homophobic attack.
Emma MacLean and her partner, Tori, were set on by a group of men in downtown Halifax, in the eastern Canadian municipality of Nova Scotia, while out celebrating her birthday last month.
Ms MacLean told CTV on Saturday: “I’m terrified to go downtown again in Halifax. I just feel like it’s so out of your control on what could happen. It’s overwhelming. I didn’t expect something like this to happen, especially with it happening during [gay] pride month as well.”
Ms MacLean said she was left with a bruise under her eye, a chipped tooth, and a broken nose, while her girlfriend suffered bruises on her arm and under her eye and “went to the emerge”, or hospital afterwards, but was told her nose was “too swollen for surgery”.
She posted pictures of her injuries on her Facebook page, which, she said, were a broken nose, chipped tooth, several bruises and lumps on our head, faces, etc,” adding they were “extremely thankful that things were not worse.”
A video of the incident, supplied by a witness and uploaded to the page shows a woman wearing grey trousers and a black top being kicked and punched by a group of men while on the ground in a brightly-lit area.
She singled out a man “wearing a red shirt with a walking boot”, who, she said “initially made a sexually degrading comment to me.”
Ms MacLean told CTV they were out celebrating a birthday when a group of men walking in the other direction “made a comment to me” and “my girlfriend, Tori, said ‘hey that’s my girlfriend.'”
This appeared to provoke the men, who responded with taunts and homophobic insults.
After her partner followed them to complain, she said: “I see Tori being pushed on the stairs right in front of the BMO centre and they are cement stairs and she’s on her back. That’s when all the men start punching and kicking her.”
Ms MacLean said she shouted for them to stop but they ignored her, which is when she got involved.
She said: “The fight or flight came in. I jumped on one of their backs and put him in a chokehold basically trying to restrain him.”
A witness told police patrolling the area what had happened, but the incident had ended by the time they arrived.
An officer told Ms MacLean that only one of the group provided any personal information but “claimed that we attacked them. He said the other people were not cooperative in giving their identification.”
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Police said they are investigating the incident, but no one has been charged, CTV added. Sky News has contacted the Halifax Police Department for comment.
