The family and friends of a popular celebrity hairstylist savagely attacked outside a gay LA nightclub fear he was targeted for his race or sexuality in a brutal hate crime.
Alberto Vasquez, 53, was beaten unconscious and left for dead as he left Heart Weho in the Rainbow District of West Hollywood at 8pm on Friday, April 5.
The stylist, who has worked for studios and catwalks in Paris and New York, spent more than a week critically ill in an ICU, with doctors forced to remove part of his skull to relieve pressure on a swelling in his brain.
His family fear he will never fully recover, and that his attacker could target other gay men.
‘We feel it’s gay bashing,’ sister Gloria Jimenez said. ‘He did not get robbed.
Alberto Vasquez, 53, was brutally attacked and left for dead outside an LGBT friendly nightclub in West Hollywood last week
His family do not know if he will ever fully recover from the attack which left him unconscious and needing emergency brain surgery to save his life
‘He’s got injuries all over his body, his neck, we don’t know if he’ll ever be the same.
‘He’s the type of guy who wouldn’t harm anyone we know this for a fact, I mean he’s harmless and to leave him almost for dead is awful.’
Vasquez was heading out of the nightclub to meet friends at the nearby Gym Bar but never arrived.
He was taken to Cedars Sinai Medical Center in the early hours of Saturday morning after a passer-by spotted him unconscious and bleeding in a car lot next to the nightclub.
But it was five days before his family was able to track him down when a nurse at the hospital answered a call to his cell phone.
‘The punch to his face, you can tell it was on the eye,’ Jimenez told KTLA.
‘They fractured his skull around his eye socket.’
West Hollywood, which was incorporated as a city in 1984, claims on its website that more than 40 percent of its residents identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.
‘For more than three decades, West Hollywood has been one of the most influential small cities in the nation; no other city of its size has had a greater impact on the national progressive public policy agenda.’
‘He’s the type of guy who wouldn’t harm anyone we know this for a fact,’ his sister Gloria Jimenez said, ‘I mean he’s harmless and to leave him almost for dead is awful’
The popular stylist has worked for catwalks and salons across the country and abroad
‘We need to find out who did this to our wonderful friend, brother, and uncle,’ friend and colleague Michelle Hansen (pictured) wrote
Vasquez pictured himself with Emmy Award-winning actress Elisabeth Moss on Instagram
‘We are relieved that he is expected to survive, but he will need multiple surgeries, has possible brain damage, and has a long road ahead to recovery,’ his GoFundMe appeal notes
‘We feel it’s gay bashing,’ sister Gloria Jimenez (pictured) said, ‘He did not get robbed’
Vasquez, who boasts Emmy Award winner Elisabeth Moss among his friends, has had a GoFundMe appeal set up in his name which has already raised $47,000 of its $50,000 target.
‘We do not know if he was randomly attacked by a stranger in what could be a homophobic or racist hate crime, or if he was attacked by someone he interacted with at one of the bars,’ administrator Brett Foreman wrote.
‘Alberto was taken by EMS to a hospital on Saturday morning and spent the past week in critical condition.
‘We are relieved that he is expected to survive, but he will need multiple surgeries, has possible brain damage, and has a long road ahead to recovery.
‘While we await further details about his recovery timetable from medical staff, we are beginning to raise money that will be used to cover medical and living expenses as he will be unable to work for the foreseeable future.’
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is leading the investigation but has yet to identify any suspects.
Michelle Hansen, the salon director at Pony Studios in Oakland, where Alberto had worked, said the attacker has to be caught before he finds another victim.
‘We need to find out who did this to our wonderful friend, brother, and uncle,’ she wrote.