Following other robberies involving gay victims in the area within the last several months, another gay Hillcrest resident was severely beaten and robbed on the corner of Sixth and Robinson avenues during the early morning hours on Oct. 8.

The victim, who asked not to be identified, told the Gay & Lesbian Times he was walking along Robinson Avenue around 2:00 a.m. when a silver/gray minivan pulled up alongside him and another man outside of the van asked him for a cigarette.

“I said, ‘I don’t smoke,’ and at that moment I turned around and tried to travel back the other direction, toward where it was a little brighter and possibly more people around,” he said. “That’s when the one yelled at me, ‘Empty your pockets, motherfucker.’”

The victim said he surrendered his wallet immediately, but was hit two times in the face with an object.

“I have damage to my right orbital, which rarely ever gets fractured,” he said. “It’s a very hard surface, so the doctors are probably assuming it was harder than a fist.”

The victim said he suffered various facial fractures to his upper right cheek as well as a triple fracture to his orbital. He is scheduled to undergo reconstructive surgery in which titanium plates will be permanently placed into his face.

“The cheekbone itself, the portion of it was crushed pretty dramatically in small pieces,” he said. “They can reconstruct some of it, but they can’t reconstruct all the bone.”

The two suspects were described by the victim as black males, but he could not identify them any further. “I really didn’t get good shots at their face,” he said.

The victim also said he did not hear any anti-gay statements from the suspects during the robbery, but is unsure if the GLBT community is specifically being targeted.

“It seems like a lot of the time they [the robberies] have been concentrated in highly gay-populated areas specifically,” he said. “… I’m not sure exactly what to make of it. It seems like they [the robberies] are occurring in this area, so part of me wants to think that it is somewhat premeditated, that they do keep targeting people within the gay community.”

San Diego Police Department lieutenant Margaret Schaufelberger said police have not arrested anyone in relation to this robbery.

“As you can understand, when you have a case, particularly a street robbery at night with a lone victim who is frightened and then traumatized, the challenge is [that] often there is not physical evidence,” she said. “With a lack of physical evidence, the only thing you can go by is a suspect description.”

Western Division captain Sarah Creighton said street robberies are on the rise in San Diego and are occurring throughout the Western Division.

“It’s not just in the Hillcrest area,” she said. “They’ve increased in the Mid-City area, which is just to the east of us, along the corridor, El Cajon [Boulevard] and University [Avenue] as well.”

Between April 1 and July 18, there have been 26 commercial robberies and 60 pedestrian robberies in the SDPD’s Western Division, according to SDPD acting lieutenant Sharon McNair.

Schaufelberger said since July 18 there have been a total of 36 street robberies in North Park, Hillcrest and University Heights.

Many of the incidents reported to the police involve people walking home alone in the late evening hours after exiting bars and clubs, McNair said.

On July 12, a gay man walking home from the Albertsons located on Washington Street in Mission Hills was robbed of his wallet and assaulted by four men. The victim said he believes the incident may have been hate-motivated due to the violence of the attack. The SDPD said they have not classified the assault and robbery as a hate crime because the victim did not report that anti-gay epithets were used during the attack.

In the early morning hours of Aug. 26, Hillcrest resident Michael Earick said he was struck in the head while walking home from Hamburger Mary’s (now Urban Mo’s) but was able to escape without serious injuries. Earick described the three suspects as thin African-American males between 6-foot-4 and 6-foot-6.

A day later, on Aug. 27, another gay male was attacked on Utah Street in North Park. Schaufelberger told the Gay & Lesbian Times a vehicle pulled ahead of the victim and four black males got out, beat him up and robbed him of his wallet. The victim declined medical attention at the scene, according to a police report.

Creighton said she believes there has been an increase in street robberies due to the increased focus on street gangs in the city.

“I can’t say this with absolute certainty, but there are probably gang ties to some of these suspects. There’s a lot of heat in their own turf and they’re coming where there are potential victims and opportunities,” she said.

“They need to fund their capers, and they do that by finding opportunities to get money and to brutalize people. I think that because there’s so much attention in other areas of the city, they’re coming here.”

Schaufelberger said the SDPD’s crime-fighting approach is aggressive and that, in addition to many standard techniques officers use, they are now obtaining even more information from witnesses and other people who may be familiar with a particular crime than ever before.

Creighton said officers are given information on a daily basis about what has occurred when they weren’t on duty to ensure everyone is on the same page.

“You also need to know – this is from my perspective – this is our number-one priority,” she said. “This is our biggest problem right now, is street robberies in this area. We are focusing as much attention as we possibly can from an investigative side, proactive patrol side; with everything that we have, we’re focusing attention.”

City Commissioner Nicole Murray-Ramirez, who sits on the police chief’s advisory board, said he was concerned about the rise in crime in the past few months in the Hillcrest area and recently met with Police Chief William Lansdowne and Schaufelberger to discuss crime issues and the Stonewall Citizens Patrol, a newly formed group created by American Veterans for Equal Rights in partnership with the SDPD that will patrol and monitor the areas of Balboa Park, Hillcrest and North Park during Pride next year.

Stonewall Citizens Patrol chair Bob Lehman said he will be meeting with the police department to organize a training session for people who have expressed interest in participating in the group.

Murray-Ramirez said street lighting needs to improve and that bar owners and staff need to be more aware of their patrons.

“We need to watch out for each other. They should make sure people don’t leave bars by themselves,” he said.