Michael J. Sandy is still in a coma after his attackers lured him via the Internet to a place frequented by gay men. Investigators believe that Sandy was selected by his attackers specifically because he is a gay man.

Mr. Sandy, 28, was attacked by at least two of the men, the police said. He backed away from them and, at one point, darted into the path of a car, which struck him and kept going, the police said. The police were still seeking the driver of the car that struck Mr. Sandy.

Other cars on the highway were forced to stop as the attack spilled across three lanes of roaring traffic. One witness told detectives that after Mr. Sandy was struck by the car, she saw a man drag him to the shoulder of the Belt Parkway and rifle his pockets.

His attackers were charged with hate crimes:

Detectives investigating Internet communications Mr. Sandy had had were led to the first suspect, John Fox, 19, of Knapp Street in Brooklyn, who is a sophomore at SUNY Maritime College. The other two suspects are Gary Timmins, 16, of Gerritsen Beach, and Ilye Shurova, 20, of Sheepshead Bay. The three men were charged yesterday with first-degree assault as a hate crime, and first- and second-degree robbery, also as hate crimes, according to the police. The men face a potentially longer prison term than if the hate crime statute was not applied, according to a spokesman for Charles J. Hynes, the Brooklyn district attorney.

The article is here.

Update:

The NYT has posted a longer story on this case today:

Later that night, Mr. Sandy was led to a trash-strewn parking lot near the Belt Parkway, and confronted by four men who, the authorities say, were hoping to rob him. He was beaten and chased onto the highway, where he was hit by a car. On Friday, a day after Mr. Sandy turned 29, his family removed him from a respirator.

Read the full article here.