“I do hope for recovery, but I also have to be honest with myself. It doesn’t look good.”
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Family and friends gathered on the steps of Sacramento City Hall on Saturday night for a candlelight vigil honoring 57-year-old Alvin Prasad, who remains in a coma after what police have classified as a hate-crime attack on Halloween night.
More than 100 people stood in support as Prasad’s daughter, Andrea, joined two Sacramento City Council members to urge the community to channel its anger into action. She said her father is still unresponsive in the hospital, with only slight changes in his condition since the assault.
“He’s had some slight complications, but he’s still in a coma, unresponsive, still has a feeding tube. Recovery looks slim still,” Andrea said. “I do hope for recovery, but I also have to be honest with myself. It doesn’t look good.”
Police say Prasad was attacked in the early morning hours of Nov. 1 in the Lavender Heights neighborhood. Andrea said her father had been walking to his car with her and a friend after a night of dancing at the Badlands nightclub when he was punched during a confrontation on K Street. He fell backward, hit his head on the concrete, and has remained hospitalized with severe brain injuries. The suspect, 24-year-old Sean Payton, was arrested and is in custody.
Andrea said she continues to feel “a lot of anger and sadness,” adding that she doesn’t understand why someone would think it was acceptable to attack him.
Vigil organizer Neil Galimba said many people in Sacramento’s LGBTQ-plus community once saw Lavender Heights as a safe place, but recent incidents have raised concerns.
“There’s so much violence right now that’s emerging with our community, and there’s so many people here who are upset and afraid. We need an outlet, but we also need to come together for a solution so this sort of thing doesn’t happen in the future,” Galimba said.
Galimba also noted that a friend of his was attacked in the same neighborhood two weeks before Prasad was assaulted. According to him, the community is discussing ways to improve safety, including the possible revival of a volunteer patrol called Lavender Angels, which would walk the district in recognizable shirts, carrying flashlights and helping people get safely to their cars or around the bar area.
Andrea said she hadn’t known about the earlier incidents in Lavender Heights and wants people to report hate crimes so city officials and law enforcement can track them. As she waits for her father to wake up, she said she is trying to stay hopeful.
“There could be a miracle where he does manage to survive, but it would be a miracle. I wanna be positive, so I hope for the best,” she said.
Organizers also urged people to use a buddy system when going out, stay aware of their surroundings, and ask rideshare drivers to wait until they enter their destinations.
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