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Beaten, broken and bruised: Victim relates horrifying tale

Days after being brutally kicked, punched and stomped on by a group of teenagers on bicycles, the bruises on one side of the man’s upper body were clearly evident.

“I have to stand. My back and ribs hurt when I sit down,” the 44-year-old city resident said during a brief interview at his home on Wednesday morning.

“I hope they catch who did this to me. If you can’t go down your streets in the middle of the day, something is wrong,” the victim said. He asked that his name not be published.

“I want to remain as anonymous as possible until they’re caught,” he said.

The victim said he was walking with a friend who was riding a bicycle in the area of Ridge Avenue and Dove Court on the afternoon of Oct. 8 when the two were targeted by a group of eight teens on bicycles.

“They were following us. A couple of them would come up to us and start talking, laughing, giggling and then suddenly drop back. They were trying to assess the situation. They were planning to do something, I’m sure.”

The victim said the teens were black, some thin and tall, others were “heavy set, like football players.”

“Some of them were big dudes. Most of them are taller than me,” he said.

The group wanted the bicycle the victim’s friend was riding.

“We knew something was going to happen,” the man added.

“They must have figured they had the right spot, the right timing. One of them started to hit my friend in the back of his head. I put my hand on his (the teen’s) shoulder, and told him, ‘No, don’t do that,'” the man said.

“I kept telling them, ‘You go your way, we’ll go ours. We don’t need any trouble here.’ They didn’t want to hear that. They wanted to make trouble,” he added.

“They wanted my friend’s bike and they wanted to get him,” he said.

“I was ready to take on two dudes. Suddenly six other (teens) got me from behind. They took my legs out, knocked me to the ground. They all then were on top of me,” he added.

He yelled to his friend, a man in his late 50s, to “get out of here before you get hurt.” The friend took his bike and went a short distance and called 911.

However, before the police reached the scene, all eight teens had scattered.

He said the assault lasted less than a minute.

“These kids have apps on their cellphones with scanners” that pick up police calls, the victim said.

“I tried to hold on to one of the teens, restrain him until the cops got there, but no, they all broke up and went in different directions,” he said.

While he initially declined treatment, the pain next day was excruciating.

“I thought I was OK until the next morning. I was laid out. I couldn’t do anything,” the victim said.

A relative took him to the local hospital, where he was treated for a concussion and four fractured ribs.

“I can’t work. I’m busted up. If I cough, I feel like I’m going to die. I have no insurance,” the man said.

Sleeping is very difficult for him.

“If I lay down, I might get one hour of sleep at a time. Then I sit up. When sitting hurts, I have to stand up until it starts hurting all over again,” he said.

“I’m on pain meds, but I got to take them sparingly,” he added.

No arrests had been made in the case as of presstime.

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