BY KERRY BURKE, MIKE JACCARINO and RICH SCHAPIRO
DAILY NEWS WRITERS
An oxygen tube pumping air into his lungs, the 28-year-old man allegedly beaten and stabbed in the West Village by a gang of petite lesbians described the attack yesterday from his hospital bed.
"They hated men," Wayne Buckle said from the intensive care unit of Saint Vincent's Hospital Manhattan. "I think it would have been any man and not just me."
Still shaken by Friday's terrifying assault, Buckle, an independent filmmaker from Queens, said he felt he was the victim of a bias attack.
"It was a hate crime against a straight man by a ton of lesbians," he said. "This is what the world is coming to."
Several witnesses and police sources said Buckle sparked the attack by spitting on a 19-year-old lesbian after she rejected his advances outside the IFC movie theater on Sixth Ave. near W. Third St. He also allegedly cursed the woman, Patrice Johnson, using gay slurs.
Johnson and six of her friends - all lesbians from New Jersey - pounced on Buckle at 2 a.m., whipping him with belts before Johnson stabbed him repeatedly in the belly with a 4-inch serrated steak knife, authorities said.
Buckle was bleeding badly after the attack. He suffered multiple stab wounds to his stomach, and his face was bruised.
The seven suspects were arraigned early yesterday on charges of attempted murder, assault and gang assault. They were ordered held on $50,000 cash bail or $150,000 bond.
His eyes swollen, Buckle was hooked up to a respirator yesterday. He denied that he had provoked the attack and insisted he was not homophobic.
"All I said was, 'Excuse me, how are you doing?' like a gentleman," he said. "I thought it was the natural thing to do."
Originally published on August 19, 2006
