CNN
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Police in Gloucester, Massachusetts, are seeking charges against three teenagers who allegedly assaulted a transgender teen, who says he was punched and called slurs during the attack.
The Gloucester Police Department filed applications for assault and battery charges in Gloucester Juvenile Court against two 17-year-old males and one 16-year-old male, according to a news release.
Evidence from the investigation did not support the pursuit of hate crime charges, police said in the release. But the alleged victim and his mother are hopeful that will change, their attorney told CNN.
The teenagers, unnamed by the police department, will now attend a hearing where a clerk magistrate will determine whether there is probable cause for the charges, the release says. It’s unclear when the clerk magistrate hearing will take place.
Police responded to a reported assault during a party in the woods on August 30, the release says. One “juvenile” male was taken to a local hospital for treatment of his injuries, according to the release.
Although the news release doesn’t identify the victim, 16-year-old Jayden Tkaczyk told CNN affiliate WCVB he was stomped on, punched in the face and called homophobic slurs during the incident.
Tkaczyk “sustained lacerations and contusions, including black eyes, and serious nervous damage” due to the “severe beating,” his attorney, Craig Rourke, told CNN. Tkaczyk had previously experienced bullying at school, Rourke added.
The police department said its investigation, which included a specially trained hate crime investigator from the Massachusetts State Police, “did not ultimately support hate crime charges.”
Tkaczyk’s lawyer and his family are calling for hate crime charges, citing slurs they say the attackers used.
Tkaczyk’s mother, Jasmine Tkaczyk, told WCVB that her son “told me as they were stomping on his face they were using the F slur, so I don’t know how anyone can justify that and say that’s not a hate crime.”
Tkaczyk told WCVB, “Especially chasing me into the woods and saying that same thing, because they were calling me that slur, and they were calling me worse slurs.”
Rourke told CNN they were “glad that the charges are being pursued” and “hopeful that hate crime charges will follow in the future.”
Rourke described Tkaczyk as someone who was “targeted and picked on for being who they are.”
Rourke’s team is optimistic the magistrate will find probable cause for the charges and the case will move forward, he added. “Hopefully, maybe that’ll bring some closure to this incident,” he said.
Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey, a Democrat, previously denounced the attack on Tkaczyk.
“There should be no place in our Commonwealth or our country for violence against trans children,” the senator wrote on X in September. “We must love, protect & respect trans kids.”
Hope Watt-Bucci, the president of North Shore Pride, an LGBTQ group based in Manchester, Massachusetts, told CNN she was “horrified” to learn about the attack on Tkaczyk. Watt-Bucci said attacks against the LGBTQ community in Massachusetts’ North Shore were growing significantly, including “microaggressions, public displays of discrimination and hatred towards our community or physical violence.” The Justice Department says that there were 23 hate crimes motivated by gender identity in 2022 in Massachusetts, a significant increase from 10 in 2021 and 11 in 2020.
North Shore Pride will “continue to stand in solidarity and continue to stand for the same freedoms and protections for all people,” she added.
