Gay Tourists Beaten Outside Hawaii Club

(Honolulu, Hawaii) Two tourists from the mainland have been brutally beaten in separate attacks outside one of Honolulu's most famous gay clubs.

Pamela Disel, 15, of Oklahoma City, was walking toHula's Bar and Lei Stand with two female friends when they were approached by two men.

One of the men asked them if they were lesbians.

Disel replied that she was and the women kept walking.  The men continued to follow them and after taunting the three with anti-gay epithets Disel said one of the men struck her in the face.

She said that next thing she remembers is sitting on the sidewalk spitting blood. 

She received several fractures below her eye, a broken mandible and a concussion along with lacerations and other cuts to face.  

"I'm from Oklahoma and would think it (an attack based on sexual orientation) would happen there before here," she The Advertiser newspaper. "Hawaii is presented to us as a place that is safe for us (homosexuals) and for all tourists. Right now, it is not safe."

Earlier this month a man walking home from the bar was also accosted. Dr. Tim Noreuil, a Missouri doctor who owns a condominium in Hawaii, suffered 30 fractures to the right side of his face after he was hit from behind with an unidentified object. 

Noreuil was walking home from Hula's when three men walked by him, made eye contact, and then one of the men doubled back and hit him.

Noreuil told the paper that the attack was not prefaced with derogatory remarks.

Both incidents are being investigated by Honolulu police but officers say they do not know if the attacks are related. There are no leads and investigators say they hope someone on the street will come forward with information.