Manhattan art gallery owner claims he was viciously beaten by 15 youths shouting “F— Trump!” while walking down a Chinatown street in a “Make America Great Again” baseball cap.
Jahangir Turan, 42, suffered a gruesome left eye injury when jumped by the group on Canal St. near Broadway about 7:30 p.m. Monday, shortly after purchasing the familiar red hat inside the Trump Tower. Turan told the Daily News that he suffered an orbital floor fracture to a bone in his left eye when slammed against a piece of the scaffolding on the sidewalk.
“They beat me up for wearing the hat,” Turan said Thursday. “They were saying ‘Why are you wearing that?’ One girl flipped the hat off my head, and I tried to grab it. Then they came after me. One guy grabbed me from behind and slammed my head against a metal post.”
Turan said he picked up the hat in an impulse purchase just a short time earlier inside President Trump’s Fifth Ave. skyscraper, just around the corner from his nearby David Parker Gallery on W. 57th St. — where works by Andy Warhol and Salvador Dalí are available.
He was headed to dinner with a friend when targeted over his pro-Trump headwear.
Police arrived at the scene but made no arrests, in part because the victim could not give the officers a description of his attackers.
“You know what?” Turan told The News. “It happened too quick. I didn’t have time to think. The cops were like, ‘Can you ID them?’ And I couldn’t. It was just this guy being a punk. It’s almost like he just did it because all his boys were there.”
A police official on Thursday confirmed to The News that the department is actively investigating Turan’s case and said his statements have been consistent to police and they have no reason to doubt his story.
Two law enforcement sources, however, said there was some skepticism about the alleged Trump-hating gang attack, and said it might just have been a brawl between him and another person.
Turan, who declined medical attention at the scene, was later diagnosed with the bone fracture. But he’s irate that three days later, police had yet to track down any suspects.
“Of course I’m (angry) — why do you think I went to the media?” he said. “I felt angry after Tuesday and Wednesday, when I didn’t see them doing anything. Two days, no arrests. I think some of these cops are anti-Trump.”
Turan supports the president: “I mean, listen, he’s doing a good job. My opinion.”