The neighbor of a 61-year-old Dundalk, Md. man who was brutally beaten by dozens of teenagers last month says he believes the attack was racially motivated.
Richard Fletcher was attacked by nearly 50 teens in broad daylight on April 22, after he intervened when two girls began fighting on his truck. Dundalk sits on the edge of Baltimore, and many of the teenagers are believed to be students at Baltimore Community High School.
The gruesome beating left Fletcher with extensive injuries and a medical bill expected to exceed $200,000. He suffered broken eye sockets, a broken nose, broken ribs and bleeding on the brain.
New cell phone video of the attack shows dozens of teens kicking, punching, and stomping Fletcher as he lay motionless in the middle of the street.
Joe Lamb, who owns a business near Fletcher and says he saw the attack, told The Daily Caller he believes that race was a factor in the beating.
Fletcher is white while his attackers are black.
Lamb said that the attack was “definitely a race thing” and that he has witnessed other incidents of black students targeting whites in the neighborhood.
Lamb said he has been called racial pejoratives in the past and had “rocks thrown at my trucks, rocks thrown through the front window of the office.”
Last month he told WBAL that the violence in the neighborhood “has gotten out of hand now, gone too far.”
“The kids walk on top of cars, kick dogs, let dogs out, throw trash, steal milk from school and throw it at houses, threaten neighbors with bodily harm,” Lamb said.
Baltimore County police did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether the attack is being investigated as a hate crime.
Only three of Fletcher’s attackers have been arrested so far. Antoine Lawson, 17, was charged with attempted murder and will be tried as an adult. A 15-year-old girl was also charged with assault. Another unidentified 17-year-old male was arrested this week and will be charged as an adult.
Neighbors have set up a GoFundMe account to help Fletcher defray his medical costs.
“The community in all, we’re really disgusted with the actions of the students,” Georgia Bartrum, who heads the Harbor View Neighborhood Association, told CBS Baltimore.
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