Eindhoven gay bashing suspects as young as 12: Police

Police in Eindhoven said they were looking for a group of boys as young as 12 for the unprovoked assault of a man walking near the Woensel shopping center last week. The victim, Bart Jansen, said he was viciously attacked because he is a homosexual.

Since the Wednesday attack, he said he has cried several times, wondering what he has done to deserve to be a target. "That people can hate you so much for who you are. That hurts a lot.”

Police said they were searching for two boys between 12 and 14 years of age wearing black coats. One was described as tall and slender, with a pointed face and medium-length dark hair. The other had a larger build with dark, curly hair.

They called him "faggot," and "zemmel" the Moroccan-Arabic slang word meaning the same, Jansen told the Eindhovens Dagblad, after he answered in the affirmative that he was gay. They also spat at him.

Nevertheless, Jansen brushed off the verbal abuse and went inside a grocery store, but the group grew to seven by the time he paid for his shopping.

He thought he'd march right past the kids, but they started kicking and stomping him for no reason, police confirm. Jansen said his injuries had not healed several days after the assault.

"I am not angry about it, I am especially very sad," Janssen said. "The Netherlands once led the way in gay emancipation. That is slipping further and further," he told the newspaper. Jansen no longer thinks he can walk hand-in-hand with another man on the street.

Authorities asked for any witnesses to the attack to contact them. They were hoping to speak with a male bicyclist who rode by at about 8:30 p.m. as the violence occurred on the Franklin D. Rooseveltlaan side of the parking lot.