Two marines were arrested Saturday in
Savanna, Georgia on charges they battered a gay man, the Savanna
Morning News reported.
The men, both stationed at Marine Corps
Air Station in Beaufort, S.C., were arrested by Savanna police about
4AM, and were later released to Marine police. The men could face
both civilian and military charges. Savannah police booked the pair
on a misdemeanor charge of battery and their bond was set at $1,850.
Responding to a call, police found
26-year-old Kieran Daly laying motionless on the ground as friends
performed first aid. Witnesses said Daly was attacked because he is
gay.
Moments earlier, police had witnessed
two men matching the description of the attackers running on Congress
Lane. When police caught up with Keil Joseph Cronauer, 22, and
Christopher Charles Stanzel, 23, they told officers they “were
being harassed by a white homosexual male earlier in the evening and
just wanted to get away,” according to a police report.
Witnesses told police that one of the
men grew angry because he thought Daly was winking at him. He struck
Daly in the back of the head with his fist, knocking him unconscious.
Daly suffered two seizures immediately
after the attack and has been diagnosed with bruises to the brain.
He said his attacker yelled anti-gay
slurs at him as he tried to walk away from the argument over whether
Daly was coming on to him.
“The guy thought I was winking at
him,” he told the paper. “I told him, 'I was squinting, man. …
I'm tired.'”