A transgender woman and her friends were attacked last week by a group of individuals in Portland, Oregon in an incident police are investigating as a possible hate crime.

Atlas was out with friends on September 12, around 2:30am, when they approached a group of people to ask for a cigarette near the food carts in the 300 block of West Burnside Street, KATU reports.

“Very quickly you could tell that he had noticed that I am trans,” she said. “He started calling me all kind of slurs and homophobic and transphobic things. He just got more and more escalated and continued to say more and more things that were very much like hate speech. Then he started to approach me. Then he and his friend attacked me.”

Atlas said she suffered bleeding and bruising on her knees and head and that one of her friends, who is also a member of the LGBTQ community, has a broken nose as a result of the attack.

Police arrived on the scene and searched for the suspects to no avail. They are asking anyone with information to come forward to help them solve the case.

“The Bureau investigates all reports of bias-motivated crimes and encourages any member of our community who is the victim of such a crime to contact law enforcement. Under Oregon law, bias crimes are defined as any criminal act that targets a victim based on the suspect’s perception of the victim’s race, color, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender identity or national origin,” the police department said in a press release.

“My whole body hurt, like honestly, it felt like I had gotten hit by a truck,” Atlas said.

“Having someone want to hurt me because of the fact that I live a life that makes me happy and truly feel that this is who I am is really scary to me.”

In the United States, at least 19 transgender people have been killed this year, three of whom died this month.