NEW YORK (JTA) — A 22-year-old New York City fashion student said he was beaten by a group of Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn.

Taj Patterson, who attends the New York City College of Technology, said he was walking through the Williamsburg section of the borough heading home to the Fort Greene section when he was brutally attacked, the New York Daily News reported.

Patterson suffered a broken eye socket, a torn retina, blood clotting, cuts and bruises in the Dec. 1 attack, which he says involved gay slurs, according to the newspaper. He was rushed to Woodhull Hospital in Brooklyn to undergo eye surgery.

“I’m walking down some block by myself and then the next thing I know, I’m surrounded by a group of Hasidic Jewish men and they’re attacking me,” Patterson told the Daily News. “I was alone. I was an easy target. I’m black. I’m gay, a whole slew of reasons.

Evelyn Keys, a city bus driver, said Patterson was surrounded by the men as he lay on the ground incapacitated, the Daily News reported.