'Proud gay' California dad dies 2 months after 'hate crime' attack
Prosecutors say 58-year-old Alvin Prasad was attacked after leaving a gay nightclub on Halloween because of his 'perceived gender and sexual orientation'
www.usatoday.com
A gay California man assaulted in what authorities say was a hate crime on Halloween night has died of his injuries. Now his accused attacker is facing a homicide charge.
Sean Wesley Payton Jr., 25, has been held in jail for about two months following the attack in Sacramento around 1:30 a.m. on Nov. 1. Alvin Prasad, the 58-year-old man he's accused of targeting, died of his injuries in the hospital on Sunday, Dec. 28. His daughter, Andrea Prasad, has identified him as gay on the GoFundMe page she created, and Prasad was proudly open in hundreds of social media posts.
Now Payton will be booked on a homicide charge, Sacramento police announced on Monday, Dec. 29.
Prosecutors had not charged Payton with homicide as of Wednesday, Dec. 31, but were "evaluating" doing so in light of Prasad's death, the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office told USA TODAY on Wednesday.
Before Prasad's death, prosecutors had filed felony assault charges with a hate crime allegation and a great bodily injury allegation, along with a charge of resisting arrest.
“The Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office takes every hate crime seriously, including those targeting members of our LGBTQ+ community," the office said.
Court records did not list an attorney for Payton, whose next court date is Jan. 30.
Here's what we know.
What happened to Alvin Prasad?
Alvin Prasad's youngest daughter, Andrea Prasad, posted on the GoFundMe page that she was with her father and a friend walking to their car on Halloween night after dancing at Badlands Sacramento, a popular gay night club in the city's Lavender Heights neighborhood, considered an LGBTQ+ hub."A man walked past my dad and insulted him," Andrea Prasad wrote without elaborating on what was said. "My father verbally confronted the man. My father didn’t physically do anything towards the man, only used words, a simple question. Within seconds, the man punched my father on the forehead."
She said that her father fell back on the sidewalk and then his head hit the concrete, "causing immediate damage and bleeding on the back of his head."
"It was a hate crime," she wrote. "This assault cause irreversible, permanent brain damage."
Sacramento police said officers arrived to the scene around 1:30 a.m. Nov. 1 to find Prasad suffering from blunt-force injuries. They gave him emergency medical aid until fire personnel arrived.
Police arrested Payton and booked him. The department's homicide detectives have taken over the investigation since Prasad's death.
What do prosecutors say about the hate crime allegation?
Payton assaulted Prasad because of Prasad's "perceived gender and sexual orientation," according to a criminal complaint filed against Payton on Nov. 4 and obtained by USA TODAY on Wednesday.The complaint says the assault was committed "for the purpose of intimidating and interfering with the victim's free exercise and enjoyment of a right secured by the laws of the Constitutions of California and the United States."
Who was Alvin Prasad?
Prasad's social media posts depict him as an effervescent and "proud gay" man who adored his kids and grandkids, enjoyed dressing up in costume and frequently wore shirts that said things like "Be kind" and "Choose love."In an Instagram post on Aug. 20, Prasad wrote that all gay bars and clubs need to display signs that tell customers that they are guests of the gay community and "if you are not comfortable with this, do not come in."
"Then we can feel even more comfortable being us," Prasad wrote.
Prasad's last Facebook post before his death was on Oct. 27, when he announced that he had only seven days left before retirement. He was attacked four days after the post.
His daughter Andrea, who did not immediately respond to USA TODAY's request for an interview on Wednesday, has documented her father's hospitalization for his friends on Facebook who were anxious for updates. She said that on the day of his death on Dec. 28, she arrived to the hospital just minutes after her father died and got the news from heartbroken nurses.
"I immediately started to cry and dropped to the floor, then fell to my knees," she wrote. "I thought I had a little more time. I just wanted to say 'I love you' one more time before he passed."
