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Boston Man’s Face Slashed With Box Cutter in Anti-Gay Attack

The victim was also hit with a snow shovel.

A Boston man was assaulted this week in what is being treated as a hate crime, ABC affiliate WCVB reports.

Police say the 25-year-old victim, who wishes to remain unnamed, was walking down the street in Boston’s Lower Roxbury neighborhood when the suspect started calling him several anti-gay slurs. The attacker then hit the victim in the head with a snow shovel and slashed him over his eye with a box cutter.

The victim was taken to a local hospital and treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

The suspect, later identified as Boston resident Eddie Smith, 58, fled on foot but was apprehended. Police said they found a box cutter and snow shovel near the scene.

The victim told police he had previous encounters where Smith had verbally abused him and insulted his sexual orientation.

"I believe he’s a homophobe because whenever he sees me, he starts calling me the f-word," the victim explained to WCVB. "Whenever he would like call me names, I would ignore it. But yesterday I responded, and I guess he didn’t like what I said. So he hit me. He had a shovel and he hit me with the shovel. And then we exchanged a few punches, and that’s when he went into his pocket and pulled out the box cutter."

Smith was charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, civil rights violation, and mayhem. He was released on personal recognizance.

While the judge has ordered that Smith is not allowed to have any contact with the victim, Smith lives just doors away from the victim's mother.

"I just hope I don’t see him like soon," the victim said. "It just sucks that now I have to remember him when I look at my face for the rest of my life."

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