A 92-year-old man was beaten with a brick, kicked and insulted while on his daily walk around his family’s neighborhood on July 4.
Rodolfo Rodriguez embarked on his walk at about 7 p.m. when he accidentally bumped into a little girl as he tried to get around her, hetoldCBS Los Angeles
However, what he thought was just a harmless little bump enraged the little girl’s mother who allegedly began to beat the elderly man with her fists and a brick.
Rodriguez toldCNN that the woman then ran up to a group of men and allegedly told them he had been trying to take her daughter.
“But that’s not true,” he told the outlet, crying. “In the years I have been alive I have never offended anyone.”
Rodriguez, who does not speak English and was visiting his family from Mexico as he does twice a year, suffered broken ribs, a broken cheekbone and has bruises all over his body.
A witness, Misbel Borjas, told CNN she saw thewoman and a group of men allegedly hitting Rodriguezrepeatedly.
“I heard her saying ‘Go back to your country, Go back to Mexico,’” she said. “When I tried to videotape her with my cell phone, she threw that same concrete block, tried to hit my car.”
Borjas shared a video of Rodriguez on the ground and bleeding heavily on Facebook in which he told her in Spanish that the woman had already left.
His grandson, Eric Mendoza, told CBS he just wants to know why his grandfather was targeted.
“That’s the lesson you’re going to give your child, for you to hurt elderly people because they bump into you?” Mendoza told the station. “I just want to know what was going through her mind.”
Mendoza began aGoFundMefor his grandfather where he provided updates on his recovery.
His goal of $15,000 surpassed that with just over $102,000 raised at the time of publication.
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The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office is currently investigating the case,according toKTLA.
Sheriff’s Deputy D’Angelo Robinson told the station they “are concerned, especially with the type of crime they committed.”
“There was what appears to be a 4-year-old child there who witnessed the entire thing,” he continued. “We can’t have these kind of people like that out in the streets.”
source: people.com
