UPDATE: News reports are emerging late Tuesday that indicate that Quinn Matney's police report was false. (WFMY)
The Department of Public Safety has determined that the alleged aggravated assault reported to campus last night did not occur. That report, filed with campus police on April 5, was false. The University will not report it as a hate crime.
[Metro Weekly's original post about this report continues below]
''[He] reached over while I was talking, grabbed my hand and said, 'Here's a taste of hell.' ... Imagine that pressed, not letting go, and a relentless, burning, searing pain.... It has burned all the way through the flesh and keeps burning muscle and tendon....''
Quinn Matney, a freshman at the University of North Carolina, who claims that a man attacked him on a campus footbridge, called him a gay slur, and used an unspecified, heated item to severely burn the inside of his left wrist. WRAL reports that the alleged incident is being investigated as a hate crime. (WRAL)
''Despite the horridity of the event, it has let me see how much my community loves me.''
Matney told the Daily Tar Heel that he was called a "f-ing fag" and he had to punch the assailant so that he would let go. He describes the attacker as a 19-year-old white male who he had seen at that same spot before on several occassions. From the student-oriented website's report it seems that Matney was alone at the time. But Matney says another male student (someone he recognized) did witness the incident and could corroborate his story, yet he did not know that student's name and is trying to find him. (Daily Tar Heel)
