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Windsor gay man beaten and robbed

On May 21, a Windsor man was the victim of an alleged hate crime and robbery by two men who assaulted him as he was walking home from a friend's house early Friday morning, only a couple of days after the International Day Against Homophobia.

Chris Rabideau was beaten unconscious and kicked in the head, ultimately giving him a concussion, a broken nose, a blackened right eye, bloody lips and bruising in the face. Rabideau remembers hearing the men calling him "faggot" and "homo" as they beat him, he told the Windsor Star.
Sexual orientation is a protected class under Canadian hate crimes provisions. Police have said at this point that the attack against Rabideau had "overtones" of a hate crime and was initially just a robbery, until the robbers allegedly realized that their victim was gay.
Rabideau is a large participator in Windsor Pride events and directed the play "Waking Up Blue," a one-act youth play about the negative effects of homophobia for the International Day Against Homophobia on May 17. Rabideau said that he feels it's ironic that he should be the victim of a hate crime after trying to tackle such issues with the play.
"That's the irony, isn't it?" he told the Windsor Star. "You get people in a room to tell stories, to show people we need to spread awareness. And then five days later, this has happened to me."
The two men took Rabideau's wallet and intended to make him take $500 out of his account. When he ran up to his apartment to get away from them, he couldn't get his keys out soon enough and they beat him in the lobby of his apartment building, kicking him in the head.
A security camera in the lobby of Rabideau's apartment building caught some of the attack on camera.
They left casually afterward, and Rabideau was taken to the hospital by his roommate. Police are still searching for the two men. They are described as a white male age 25 to 28 with short brown hair and a "chin strap" beard and a 25 to 32-year-old male with long black hair and two teardrop tattoos under his right eye.
Anyone with information about the crime has been asked to contact the Windsor Police Department at 519-255-6700.

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