One recent Tuesday evening, Richard Schiwietz strolled down State Street, arm-in-arm with a male friend, when a man approached them. The man flipped him off and yelled, “Faggot! Your mother’s a whore!” Schiwietz recalled.
Schiwietz, who is 64 and openly gay, told the man to stop. But the man refused and instead cried, “You say one more word, and I’m going to coldcock you,” according to Schiwietz. “Try it,” he replied.
That he did. “He punched the side of my head and knocked my glasses off,” Schiwietz said. His friend, Saul Lerma, tried to intervene, but a moment later, the guy ran off. “Stop! What are you doing?” Schiwietz yelled. “Get back here.”