Be careful whose version of events you believe

Last weekend, there was an alleged hate crime reported at the restaurant Shi in LIC. A husband and wife and their gay friend had just left the restaurant when they were allegedly pounced on by a bunch of goons yelling racial and gay slurs. The couple then tried to get back inside the restaurant they just pleasantly dined at and the doorman/management refused to allow them back inside or call 911. That was the victims' story last week, anyway.

This sounded kind of bogus to me, so I decided to wait before posting anything about it. And my intuition was correct. The Queens Courier is now reporting that surveillance video shows that the attack happened down the street and no such refusal to help happened, and the owner says the couple had been thrown out for bad behavior. The NYPD is not charging anyone with a hate crime, and there is at least one report that they provoked the attack.

I've been duped by stories before as well, but the media did a real hatchet job on this restaurant which went viral. Social media lit up with condemnation of Shi based on lies, which is likely to affect their bottom line. I hope the restaurant sues the pants off them all. It seems all people have to do these days is cry discrimination and they are automatically believed, no matter how fishy their story sounds.