Portland man arrested after ‘punching trans woman in unprovoked LGBT hate crime’

A Portland man was arrested on Wednesday night after allegedly attacking a trans woman on the street in an LGBT hate crime.

Timothy Emmett Walsh, 38, is suspected of punching a passing trans woman in the face several times in an unprovoked incident.

According to the Portland Police bureau, he made an initial comment about “a man in woman’s clothing” and a “second comment about the victim’s sexual orientation” before leaping off his bike and attacking her.

The woman did not require medical treatment at the scene, while Walsh was arrested at around 8pm and charged with Assault in the Fourth Degree and Intimidation in the Second Degree, which is considered a hate crime offence under state law.

Portland police also said that Walsh was being held in the Multnomah County Jail for a parole violation.

Image: (Creative Commons / Wikipedia)

Nancy Haque, executive director at Basic Rights Oregon, a non profit LGBT advocacy group, told LGBT website Them that the incident was representative of an “atmosphere of hate.”

She said: “There is an uptick in anti-LGBTQ+ violence and hate crimes, and there’s an atmosphere of hate being emboldened in this moment.

“It leads to people feeling like they can attack people based on who they are, who they love, or the colour of their skin.”

She added that there was a connection between the rights of LGBT+ people being curtailed and increased violence.

The incident comes on the heel of an expletive-laden verbal attack on a lesbian couple in the city, which was filmed and uploaded to Facebook.

The man is caught on camera launching a vile tirade against a lesbian couple in the city (Trudy Dragoon / Facebook)