Prominent interior designer brutally attacked outside North Texas restaurant
RICHARDSON — An apparently random, savage attack on a prominent Dallas interior designer has elements of a hate crime.
It was an assault outside a Richardson restaurant that has police still looking for the person responsible.
"My passion is helping people see how they can live better through what my 20 years of experience can bring them," said David Call, an interior designer. "I like people to feel the comfort of my design in the morning when they step on the carpet."
Through his luxury interior design business and blog called Interior Tea, Call has brought that feeling of comfort to countless DFW clients for 25 years.
But his sense of comfort has been shattered along with his eye socket and nose after a night out in Richardson on November 9.
"I don't know who they were," Call said. "I was just rinsing the blood off my hands and off my face. I couldn't see. I couldn't see anything. And I just quickly got in my car ... It's hard to talk about."
Call was standing outside his SUV scrolling through his phone in the parking lot of this restaurant on Coit Road.
"I was going to meet friends who invited me to join them for dinner, part of a dinner group, and I arrived early," said Call.
He said a young man wearing a hoodie approached and verbally assaulted him with gay slurs and political statements before punching the 60-year-old in the face.
"I was just in and out of consciousness, but I was found by somebody who picked me up—they disappeared. I don't know who they were," Call said. "I was just rinsing the blood off my hands and off my face."
Richardson police said they are still searching for the person responsible.
Call said he wasn't robbed and can only believe what happened was a hate crime.
"That was the weird part," said Call. "My car was running. My phone, my key fob. He could have driven off with my car."
Call is getting comfort from friends and colleagues as he prepares for surgery to repair the damage to his face. A man with so much confidence in creating interior spaces now has to rebuild his confidence in the outside world.
"It feels like I'm trapped under ice that's been fractured and I can't seem to get past the ice shelf."