Watch: Hate in the Streets. Gay Couple Verbally Assaulted Outside Vancouver Train Station
A Canadian man turned himself into Vancouver police after a video of him slurring homophobic remarks at a gay couple in the city's streets went viral.
The Vancouver Sun reported that "police launched an investigation Tuesday after a 27-year-old man posted a TikTok video of the frightening incident recorded outside Burrard SkyTrain Station last Saturday."
The video, posted by Jamie Pine on social media, showed an identified man yelling at him and his boyfriend, wrote MSN.
Pine posted his video on Twitter. "So this guy," he explains, "followed my boyfriend and I on the sky train for the entire journey. Just standing over us. This bitch was staring at us the whole time. The entire way. I thought he wanted to smash my boyfriend tbh. He chased us down the platform, up the escalator, up the bus..."
At this point, the man can be heard in the background.
"I don't give a fuck," he is heard shouting. "If you are boyfriends, get a fucking hotel room. We don't need to see that freaking shit in public. Go home. The kids don't need to see that shit in public. Don't like it? Get the fuck out of Canada. Freaking gay boy."
At that point the angry man walked away after throwing an object on the street.
Not long after, he returned and confronted the couple a second time. "There's kids on the Skytrain," he claimed, "and they were feeling each other up."
"We weren't," Pine responded. "We were sitting next to each other. He had his hand on my leg at best."
Best showed a clip of them on the subway train with sitting in a bench with his boyfriend sitting at a right angle in an adjacent seat. "We were sitting opposite each other."
The video returned to the ranting man, who continued. "I don't like that."
"Not my problem," Best replied. "This is the person I love. This is my boyfriend."
"K. That's fine," the man responded.
"And we deserve to be able to act normal in public," Best continued.
But the man disagreed. "That's not fucking normal, ok? That's not fucking normal. Not in my fucking town. In my badass town there are 5000 people, I don't see a single person touching each other in public whether it's a man and a woman.
"We weren't touching each other," Best replied.
"Yeah, you were," the man claimed. "On the fucking train and there were kids on the train."
There were no children, the woman narrating the video interjected, with an image of empty seats.
"And I have a fucking problem with it," the man continued. "You've got my message?"
"I've got your message, sir," Best replied.
"You've got my message?" the man repeated. "So if you're ever riding the fucking train again and there's kids on the train, keep your hands to yourself."
The man then addressed Best's boyfriend.
"Are you from Canada?" He replied he wasn't. He then demanded to know where he did come from, to which Best said "it didn't matter."
Now more agitated, the man said: "It does fucking matter." Asked why, he replied: "Because I don't want this shit in my country."
Best told the man not to address his boyfriend, but him. The man, now more angry, said "I talk to whoever the fuck I want to talk to. I don't want this shit in my fucking country."
The man approached Best's boyfriend even as Best admonished him not to.
"Do you understand me?" shouted the man. "I'll fucking talk to him if I want to."
At this point, the video ended.
The Vancouver Sun added: "While Pine maintained his composure, he said the experience was scary and 'a reminder that hate against us is alive and well ... and a bit drunk.'
"On Saturday, Vancouver Police said the suspect is a 34-year-old man from Chilliwack who had turned himself into VPD hate crime investigators on Thursday. He was arrested for his role in the alleged incident and for an unrelated firearms offence. Police have not released his name because charges have not been formally laid. The man has since been released pending a court appearance on March 29."