Yale Daily News

An attempted armed robbery and hate crime occurred on Monday night on Chapel Street between York and Park Streets, prompting a response from the Yale College Council’s LGBTQ+ Affinity Group. No one was injured. 

Yale Police Chief Ronnell Higgins described the incident in an email to the Yale community:

“An unknown male approached a member of the Yale Community, brandished a knife, called the victim a slur in reference to a sexual orientation, and demanded the person’s property,” Higgins wrote. “The victim was able to elude the offender, seeking refuge in a building.”

The incident occurred near the previous site of the now-closed Jojo’s coffee and not far from the Yale School of Art at 1156 Chapel St. The New Haven Police Department is investigating, and YPD has increased patrols at the area, Higgins wrote Monday night. 

Jordi Bertrán Ramírez, director of the YCC’s Queer Affinity Network and director of Health & Safety Policy, issued a statement on Wednesday evening. The LGBTQ+ affinity group will host check-in hours on Thursday.

“Living as a queer person comes with its dangers, but any threat to someone’s life is a situation I, along with the entire Yale College Council, take very seriously,” Bertrán Ramírez’s statement reads. “No one should be afraid to live truthfully. Homophobic jokes, one-off transphobic comments, all of these feed into a greater culture of hate that escalates to incidents like these, and we must commit ourselves to speaking up and identifying prejudice before it boils over.”

The Office of LGBTQ Resources was founded in 2009.