A retired teacher is recovering after he was attacked and robbed by six men outside a paint store in Hollywood over the weekend in broad daylight.
Fouad Mahassine was taking a sip of coffee Saturday morning at a strip mall on La Brea Avenue when he was suddenly surrounded by a group of six men. The victim said one of the men then demanded cash from him.
“I told this kid, I don’t have any money,” Mahassine said. “Unfortunately, that was the wrong answer, so he didn’t waste time. He hit me right in the head. Boom.”
Mahassine fell to the floor after the initial hit and the assailants then began to attack him.
“They kept kicking me and kicking me any way they can,” he recalled. “They took my wallet, they took my phone, they took my hearing aid. I can’t even hear. It’s a $400 hearing aid.”
A man sitting in a nearby parked car called police and the victim was then rushed to an emergency room. He suffered a brain bleed and multiple injuries.
Mahassine’s son, Zachary, said the assault left his family shaken.
“I was shocked,” Zachary Mahassine said. “I didn’t know at that point whether or not he was conscious or not, or where he was going or what happened or where it happened.”
A detailed description of the attackers was not immediately available, though police are continuing to search for them.
