An employee of E Pine’s Poco Wine and Spirits was severely beaten in a Pride weekend attack that Seattle Police detectives are investigating as a hate crime. (UPDATE: Poco tells us the person who was attacked is a manager at the venue not an owner as documented in the SPD report on the incident. “Owners Tramale and Jackie are fine, but we were all troubled by what happened,” a Poco rep tells CHS.)

According to the East Precinct report on the assault, the male victim left the Cuff around 11:30 PM on Saturday, June 25th and was walking alone on E Pine when he was approached by an unknown male. The victim told police the suspect walked up, called him a faggot, and punched him in the face.

The victim suffered “significant” injuries from the single punch including “swelling, bruising and cuts around his left eye” and a scraped left shoulder, police said. The victim told police he could not remember what had happened immediately following the punch and may have lost consciousness.

The victim arrived at Poco with visible injuries and told staff he didn’t want to talk about what had happened. According to the report, the victim “did not originally want to report the incident, but after consulting friends and coworkers about the incident he decided to report the incident to police.” The report notes that Poco is part of SPD’s Safe Place program. The police report also notes that the victim was drunk but that one employee at Poco said that the victim had been drinking before being convinced to call the police two hours after the attack and was likely less intoxicated at the time of the beating.

The suspect was described as “a white male, 28-32 years old, 6’01”, 180 lbs, and average build,” with “short to medium length blonde hair,” and wearing “blue clothing.”

Seattle Fire was called to the scene to check out the victim’s injuries.

A reported trans-phobic bashing in Pike/Pine earlier in the week on Wednesday, June 22nd continues to be an open investigation but police have not reported any new developments in that case after asking the public for help. Anybody with information is asked to call the SPD Violent Crimes tip line at (206) 233-5000.

City Hall and SPD pledged to have more officers on patrol Pride weekend following the June 22nd attack and the deadly shooting in Orlando.