Home / Dallas News / Man shown in viral videos being severely beaten by crowd in Victory Park in stable condition, Dallas police say

Man shown in viral videos being severely beaten by crowd in Victory Park in stable condition, Dallas police say

Dallas police said late Saturday that a man who was severely beaten by a crowd of protesters in the Victory Park area just north of downtown was hospitalized in stable condition.

Two graphic viral videos posted on social media Saturday night showed demonstrators stomping and kicking the man. Police said the incident occurred near the House of Blues concert venue in the 2200 block of North Lamar Street.

One attacker appeared to slam a skateboard into the man at least once and possibly several times, while at least one other appeared to pummel him with a fist-size stone.

The attack left the man bloody, contorted and motionless on the ground. An image posted later showed him sitting up and being treated by medics.

A police spokesman said late Saturday that the man went to the site “carrying a machete to allegedly protect his neighborhood from protesters. The victim confronted protesters while holding the machete and was subsequently assaulted.”

Two less-widely circulated videos on social media showed not only the attack but also about 10 to 15 seconds of activity leading up to it.

Those videos show several people hurling objects at the man, who appears to be holding a long bladed object, although it’s unclear from the footage that it’s a machete. The man eventually runs in the direction of someone carrying a skateboard, at which point more than a dozen people descend on him and attack from all sides.

Even in the longer videos, the confrontation has already begun, leaving it unclear from the videos themselves what triggered the overall incident.

No information on arrests was available late Saturday.

The attack came toward the end of the second straight day of unrest in Dallas. Both Friday and Saturday, protests over the in-custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and many other incidents of police brutality against African-Americans began peacefully before deteriorating into violence, looting and vandalism.

Dallas police arrested dozens of people Saturday. Many will be charged with inciting a riot, the department said. Meanwhile, Dallas Area Rapid Transit temporarily suspended service downtown, and many businesses in the downtown, Uptown and Cityplace areas boarded up in an effort to prevent looting and other property damage.

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