Man, 92, Hit With Brick In Brutal July 4th Attack
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — Loved ones are looking for answers after a 92-year-old man was hit with a brick in a brutal July 4th attack.
Rodolfo Rodriguez suffered broken ribs, a broken cheek bone and has bruises all over his body. This normally healthy and active grandfather says it started just before 8 p.m. on July 4th as he went out for a walk in Willowbrook.
On the sidewalk, he says he bumped into a little girl as he was trying to get around her. That's when he says a woman, believed to be the girl's mom, threw him to the ground and started hitting him with her fists, then a brick.
Erik Mendoza says his grandfather doesn't speak English and had no idea why he was attacked.
"I'm just overwhelmed how anybody can do this to a human being at all," Mendoza said. "He's 92 years of age. There's no harm that he meant for you to treat him the way you did."
Another woman told us she was driving by and saw the whole thing. She said a group of men soon joined the woman in the assault so Catherine got out of her car, took the woman's picture and asked her why.
"When I take the picture, she said, 'Oh, he tried to touch my girl.' I saw everything, this is a lie. And when the guys came, they hit him in the face, his body, everything," the woman said, adding she heard what the woman was saying to Rodriguez.
"Go back to your country, why are you here, bad things," is what the witness said she head.
The attackers left as police were called.
Mendoza is meanwhile still in disbelief. He says he doesn't understand how the woman and other men could do this to his defenseless grandfather for accidentally bumping into the little girl.
"That's the lesson you're going to give your child, for you to hurt elderly people because they bump into you?" he asked. "I just want to know what was going through her mind."
Loved ones have started GoFundMe page to help Rodriguez as he recovers from his injuries.