TAMPA BAY - Early morning on Sunday, July 7, Scott Boswell, Sonny Gonzales and Stephen Hair were brutally attacked while leaving an official Pride Tampa Bay event.

Days after the incident, the three men agreed to meet with Watermark for an opportunity to tell their story. Karen Doering of Equality Florida Legal Advocacy sat in on the meeting, as did Equality Florida executive director Nadine Smith. Several witnesses to the attack were also present.

Boswell, Gonzales, and Hair said that they and several of their friends were getting into their limousine for the ride back to St. Petersburg after the Wet Party. Their car and driver were parked on the first floor of the Channelside parking garage in Tampa.

As Boswell and friend Jeremy Fetters loaded their belongings into the trunk, a young man, later identified as Devin Scott Angus, entered the garage with several friends. As he entered the building and saw the group, he began shouting across the garage.

Boswell said that as he was loading items in the trunk that he was bumped and pushed from behind. Boswell turned around to see Angus crouching with his pants down. Angus was shouting at him.

"Come on faggot," Angus shouted. "Fuck my ass. You know you want to!"

Angus taunted Boswell while laughing in an attempt to incite a fight. Friend and witness Doug Chenneville said that he initially thought that Angus might have been joking because he was laughing the whole time.

But the joke was over when Angus lunged and punched Boswell in the mouth. Boswell jumped into the limousine where Fetters immediately tried to help him by holding a towel to his bleeding face. They were under the impression that everyone else was already in the car.

Unfortunately, this was not the case.

Gonzales was standing next to the car when Angus rushed up and struck him with an elbow across his jaw. Gonzales slammed into the car injuring his left arm and shoulder and hit the pavement splitting his scalp. As blood poured from the laceration on Gonzales's head, Angus stood nearby laughing.

Hair, Gonzales's partner, approached Angus, but he remembers nothing after that. Angus and a second man who has yet to be identified, repeatedly beat and kicked Hair, which resulted in multiple injuries including two black eyes, a skull fracture, a cracked sinus and a broken tooth.

Doug Chenneville, a witness to the incident noticed a security guard on the ramp between the first and second levels of the garage. He rushed up to ask him for help. The guard told him he couldn't act unless someone registered a complaint.

The guard later became confrontational with Chenneville and even threatened him and told him not to tell him how to do his job.

"I was shocked," Chenneville said.

Another witness and the limousine driver both called 911. Officers from the Hillsborough County Sheriff's office soon arrived to take charge of the scene. Witnesses helped deputies identify the two men who were found accompanied by two women sitting in a small red car located on an upper level of the garage. When asked to get out of the car, the two men claimed that they were the ones who had been attacked.

The first man was identified as Angus, 20, of Clearwater. Angus had one prior arrest in July 2000 for criminal mischief in Ybor City. At that time he was 18 years old and lived in Dunedin.

On advice of counsel, Angus has made no statements to the press. Based on witness accounts and evidence at the scene including his bruised and bloodied fists, Angus was charged with aggravated battery and battery evidencing prejudice. Under Florida Statute 775, the battery charge can be reclassified from a first-degree misdemeanor to a third-degree felony because it allegedly involves bias based on sexual orientation.

Angus was released on $6,000 bail on Monday, July 8.

The second man has not been identified. He was described as a white male of medium build with light brown or dirty blonde hair, slightly taller than Angus with a ruddy complexion. He was seen wearing a white tank top under an open, long-sleeve faded shirt and shorts. A man fitting the description was briefly held in custody, but was later released.

Deputies took statements from two witnesses they claimed were "unbiased," but no statements were taken from the other members of the party who witnessed the incident. No attempt was made to question the chauffeur to corroborate the witness accounts.

When questioned, deputies claimed they had everything they needed at the scene and instructed the men to go to the hospital for treatment.

"We assumed they would come to the hospital to take our statements," said witness Larry Krume. "That never happened."

Corporal Carl Hassell of the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office is acting as a liaison for the on-going investigation, but he could not be reached for comment.

One witness on the scene alleged that Angus and his friends had been asked to leave Pop City at Channelside due to their unruly behavior immediately prior to the altercation. Management at Pop City refused to comment on the incident, but they did confirm that none of their patrons were asked to leave the establishment on Saturday night.

The community has expressed its outrage over this gay-bashing assault. Gonzales said that he hopes that the community will assist him and the other victims to make sure that the men involved are prosecuted as perpetrators of a hate crime.

While one of the alleged attackers has been arrested, Equality Florida is calling on the community at large to help police find the second assailant. If anyone witnessed the assault or remembers anyone who was behaving suspiciously, please contact Equality Florida at (813)870-3735.

"The best way to express our outrage at this assault is to refuse to be intimidated," said Smith. "Those who target any of our community for violence want to put fear in all of us. We must redouble our commitment to being an open and honest and visible part of our communities. We must challenge anti-gay attitudes whether they are expressed with unjust laws, bigoted attitudes or hate violence."

"We've all been violated," said Doering. "Courage is not the absence of fear, it's acting in the face of fear."

The case has not yet been assigned to a state prosecutor. It will be the State Attorney's decision whether or not to prosecute this case as a hate crime despite the fact that the Sheriff's Office is already treating the offense as such.