Two men attacked a bicyclist at a convenience store in Hilton Head, South Carolina, last weekend, leaving him bloody and “disfigured.”
The bicyclist, a man who has not been publicly identified, stopped at a Circle K store over the weekend. He told police that he was walking his bike in front of the store when he was approached by two men, one of whom took hold of his bike and said, “I just wanna talk to ya.” The other man yelled at the bicyclist, “You remember me?”
One of the men hit the biker, who fell to the ground, and then both men beat on him as he lay prone, kicking him too. The incident took place at 9 p.m. August 30, and a responding police officer said the victim was badly injured; “there was too much blood on his face” to easily see where the bleeding started, the officer said. He then saw the man had a one-inch wound above his eye. The officer said the man’s face was already starting to swell.
The unidentified victim is apparently a town resident, and 45 years old.
A witness who made a trip to the Circle K to buy cigarettes turned Good Samaritan. He told police he saw the bicyclist being whaled on by two white men. One of them was punching the man while the other gave him a “soccer ball kick” to the face, said the witness. The witness tried to stop the men by yelling at them to get away, but had to resort to pulling the more violent man off the victim to stop the attack.
Luckily the beating was captured by the store’s video cameras, and what was shown on tape backed up what the victim and the witness said. The recordings show the two attacking men getting out of a red SUV and milling around the parking lot for a few minutes before driving away. A short time later the two men returned on foot to start attacking the bicyclist.
It looks like the attack may have been provoked by an incident eight months earlier between the victim and one of the men who assaulted him. The victim told cops that he had made a “joke or comment” to the woman who was dating the attacker, but the victim did not have any contact with that men until the parking lot beating.
Paramedics recommended the victim go to the hospital for stitches, but he refused.
The victim and the witness identified one of the attackers, but police have not released his identity. Police are seeking both attackers on charges of “battery by mob” among other crimes.
