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Lesbian Couple Allegedly Beaten After Kissing Outside Six Flags New England
A lesbian couple from Rhode Island is recovering from injuries after being viciously beaten at Six Flags New England by two women, reports Springfield newspaper The Republican.
Damarielys Mukhtar, 29, and Nikia L. Butt, 27, both residents of Western Massachusetts, now face charges of assault and battery and a civil rights violation with injury for the attack at the amusement park in Agawam, Mass. Mukthar was also charged with assault with a dangerous weapon for possessing a knife.
The victims, ages 18 and 19, and both students at at Bryant University, told police that they were verbally accosted by Mukthar when they stopped to embrace and kiss while leaving the amusement park just before 7 p.m. Wednesday night. According to their police statement, the assailant was walking by them, but stopped and stared when she saw the couple.
When one of the victims asked Mukhtar if there was a problem, Mukhtar allegedly answered, "No, I'm just waiting for my kid," according to The Republican. But when the two victims began to walk away, they say they heard Mukhtar add, "I wouldn't care about your gay asses anyway."
As the pair continued walking away, Mukhtar then allegedly began yelling homophobic slurs. In response, one of the victims turned back and approached Mukhtar, saying, "What's your problem?" and then "got into her face," notes the newspaper. Mukhtar then allegedly punched the lesbian teen in the face multiple times, knocked her to the ground, then began kicking her and pulling her hair.
Mukhtar was then joined by her friend Nikia Butt who, according to the police record, punched the second victim in the face. When a crowd began to gather around the scuffle, Mukhtar and Butt fled. The second victim then told her girlfriend she had seen Mukhtar holding a three-inch knife.
Agawam Police arrived shortly thereafter and found the victims in their car in a nearby parking lot. The woman allegedly attacked by Mukhtar was bleeding from a small cut on the bridge of her nose, according to their report. Police brought the victims back to the Six Flags parking lot, where they then arrested Mukhtar and Butts after the couple identified them as their attackers.
Mukhtar was released on $1,000 bail. Butt is currently being held at the Western Massachusetts Regional Women's Correctional Center without the right to bail, due to a previous charge of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon in March of last year, notes The Republican.
While the two now face charges of civil rights violations — defined in Massachusetts as keeping an individual from freely exercising their rights through "threat of force, intimidating, threatening a person with bodily injury or otherwise oppressing" — no hate crime charges are currently being pursued.
Massachusetts does, however, have legislation that classifies “certain criminal conduct [as] a hate crime when the conduct is motivated by bias against a person's race, color, religion, national origin, gender identity, sexual orientation or disability.” According to the state’s website, a violation of what is called a “civil rights injunction” can result in fines of up to $10,000, and up to two and one-half years in a house of correction or, if bodily injury results, to up to 10 years in state prison.”
