Friends of a man who was assaulted and called “faggot” in an attack the victim says happened near E John and 10th Ave Sunday night around 8 PM say the victim lost several teeth and suffered scrapes and bruises in the unprovoked bashing.

According to the SPD report on the incident, the male victim told police he did not believe he was targeted because of his sexual orientation but also said he had not had any contact with the two male suspects and was not robbed during the incident:

The suspects were described only as two white males and police were not notified of the crime until around 2 hours after it occurred.

Details of the attack have been spreading via social media but police are not currently investigating the incident as a hate crime.

“The attacker didn’t know the victim, so there’s not a guarantee they would’ve known he was a gay man,” said SPD spokesperson Detective Drew Fowler. “‘Faggot,’ at times, is used as a general pejorative.”

UPDATE (12/18): A commenter who says he was the victim in the incident said he does not believe he was targeted due to his sexual orientation, and thus does not consider the attack to be a hate crime.

The incident comes at the end of a year marked with renewed concerns in Seattle about gay bashing and bias crimes against LGBTQ people after a series of high profile and deadly crimes as well as more mundane but equally disturbing assaults.