Two women, Conchi Lázaro, 32, and her partner Gema, 41, denounced on May 21 a homophobic aggression in the facilities of Warner Park in Madrid. The family, born in the Canary Islands, was on vacation in the capital and at six o'clock in the afternoon of the previous day, Saturday, a group of between 10 and 15 people threw them to the ground and hit in front of their two children – five and six years old – near the entrance of the enclosure and shouting: "We're going to come for you, you fucking disgusting fucking shit!", according to the complaint they filed at a police station in the city, to which EL PAÍS has had access, and the story of the assaulted.
"I closed my eyes and thought they were killing me," Lázaro says by phone. Around 18.00, the couple and the two children, after spending the day in the park, went to the ticket office to get their belongings, ready to have a quick snack and leave. "We had a couple of glasses and left them on the floor. Then two women approach, to open the ticket office under ours. We don't say anything, but when they leave, one of them kicks the glasses," he explains. The couple does not intervene and take the children to a nearby bench. They begin to snack and in a few minutes "about 10 or 15 people" are placed next to the family.
"They looked at us and started provoking. ' What are you looking at?, Don't look!' they shouted. We replied that we were not looking. I get up, turn my back to them and look at my partner," Lazarus continues. The next thing he remembers, and which also reflects the complaint, is that a woman grabbed him by the neck while saying: "Fuck ball!" "Gema didn't even have time to tell me 'be careful', she dug my nails into it and I fell to the ground," he recalls. Then, kicks, insults and blows all over his body: "I didn't see anything. Neither where Gemma was [who had also been thrown to the ground] nor the children. I tried to get up three times, but they wouldn't let me." After the first attack, the rest of the group joined in the beating, Lazarus says.
"No one helped us"
The couple recalls that the park was full, but that "no one helped them" or came to stop the aggressors. "I got up as best I could and went to see the kids. Then I ran to find someone from security. 'Please hold them back!' I shouted, but they told me they couldn't do it," Lazarus says. She and Gemma insist there was "no security" at the time of the assault.
A spokeswoman for the park denies the couple's account: "The staff did act. Warner's protocol is to call the Civil Guard, who appeared and took a statement." Lázaro confirms that the agents, after several calls, arrived at the premises, but that they only took the data from the two women who had initiated the beatings. The park has published a statement on its Twitter profile on Thursday condemning the aggression, where they reiterate that the security team did intervene and point out that "they are collaborating with the authorities in the investigation." The Civil Guard has not prepared, for the moment, a statement on the event.
In reference to the incident that occurred last Saturday in our facilities, we condemn the regrettable behavior of a group of visitors. From Parque Warner, we denounce this type of behavior that goes against our values of diversity and family.
— Parque Warner Madrid (@ParqueWarner) May 25, 2023
Lázaro says that finally the aggressors "left on a bus" and that they did not report at that time because of nervousness and anxiety. An ambulance took the family to the Infanta Elena hospital – in the municipality of Valdemoro and 14 kilometers from the Warner – for medical examination. The report of injuries, to which this newspaper has had access, states that both women had "multiple contusions" in hip, chest, ribs, hands, knees and back, wounds on the face and "mild cranioencephalic trauma". "They tore our shirts and glasses, stole a bracelet, tore my clothes. Gemma's ear was bleeding," Lazarus recalls five days later.
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