CITY HALL — After a spate of increasingly violent anti-gay attacks broke out across the city, Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott announced an initiative Monday designed to teach tolerance in the city's public schools to keep kids safe.
Walcott will ask each school to organize at least one program to combat bullying and hate crimes before the school year ends next month, he said at a press conference at City Hall.
“No student should fear going to school because of bullying or harassment," Walcott said, standing alongside City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. "Given the recent events, I am asking that all schools incorporate anti-bullying lessons into end of year assemblies, programs and curricula to highlight the importance of treating people with respect and dignity.”
In the fifth anti-gay crime in Manhattan in the past two weeks, Mark Carson, 32, was shot in the face in Greenwich Village early Saturday morning, after his attacker, Elliot Morales, called him a “faggot” and a "gay wrestler," police and Quinn said.
The shooting is believed to be the 22nd hate crime in the city so far this year — nearly double the total number of hate crimes in all of 2012, according to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.