Holden White Source: GoFundMe

Watch: Gay Man Brutally Attacked on Grindr Date Pushes for Hate Crimes Charges

Kevin Schattenkirk READ TIME: 2 MIN.

A Louisiana gay man who was brutally attacked on a date is pursuing hate crimes charges in the case, The New York Daily News reports.

On June 20 last year, Holden White, 19, went on what he thought was a date arranged on the gay dating app Grindr, only to be violently strangled, stabbed, and cut. White says he awoke in a bathtub with cuts to his wrists and throat, "he was basically trying to cut off my hands."

White said that when he came to, the suspect "was just staring at me with a fearful look in his face, like a 'I just did this?' look. I was laying in the bathtub, naked, bleeding out, the water red and cold, and I remember thinking, 'Well, this is it.' The last words I said to myself were just 'Stay calm,' over and over and over in my head I was just repeating to myself to stay calm."

The suspect, Chance Seneca, also age 19, allegedly convinced White to come to his home to play video games. Seneca is suspected of attacking White specifically for being gay. After the attack, Seneca called 911 to report having murdered a man.

"He could have done this to a woman. Instead, he chose to do something to someone who's gay and proud about his sexuality," White told The Acadian Advocate.

While White remembers parts of the attack, police had to fill in the blanks spots in his memory due to trauma and having blacked out. He spent a month in the hospital, undergoing surgeries and rehabilitation.

White alleges that Lafayette Police mishandled the case by not investigating it as a hate crime. He was not provided with a rape kit – because of the severity of the attack, he has no recollection as to whether he might have also been sexually assaulted. Whit said he is currently working with an FBI investigation on the case, which was confirmed by Sgt. Wayne Griffin, a spokesperson with the Lafayette Police Department.

A GoFundMe was set up for White and the $100,000 goal was met.

Watch KATC's June report on the incident below.


by Kevin Schattenkirk

Kevin Schattenkirk is an ethnomusicologist and pop music aficionado.

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