WASHINGTON — Two Silver Spring, Maryland, men are charged with a hate crime after they accosted and assaulted a couple of transgender women outside a 7-Eleven, Montgomery County police say.
It was around 2:30 a.m. Monday when Edras Vasquez and Carlos Hernandez-Sanez were leaving the store on Amherst Avenue in Wheaton, Maryland. Walking into the store were two transgender women.
“The men began using very disparaging, sexually oriented-based epithets,” said Lucille Baur, with the county police.
When one of the women began recording the altercation with her phone, the argument turned physical, Baur said.
“The suspects threw a Cup-O-Noodles on one of the victims, and then proceeded to kick and punch the victim to the extent that one of the victims, the 36-year-old, was thrown against the store’s front glass window,” Baur said.
The window cracked and both women have minor injuries, Baur said.
The men ran away; the women went inside the store to call police. When responding officers put out a detailed description of the men over the radio, Baur said, Vasquez and Hernandez-Sanez were arrested within minutes.
Both the men face multiple charges, including robbery, assault and a hate crime for harassing the women based on their sexual orientation.
“Montgomery County Police Department recognizes that no person should be victimized, especially targeted by hate, and certainly we thoroughly investigate any crime that is believed to be based on an individual’s race, religion or sexual orientation,” Baur said.
Both the men are expected in court later this month.
