Santa Ana police are looking for an 18-year-old man who they say beat a man with a baseball bat for touching his car at a gas station.
Authorities identified the attacker as Samuel Alvarez, a local tagger with a history of drug use who is known to hang out near a 76 gas station on Westminster Avenue, reports KTLA.
Alvarez allegedly attacked 72-year-old Jose Chacon on Sunday about 7:30 p.m. with an aluminum bat. Police say that Chacon was “savagely beaten.”
“The suspect beat him about the head and body. Most of the bones on the left side of his face were broken,” said Cpl. Anthony Bertagna of the Santa Ana Police Department.
In surveillance video, Chacon can be seen exiting the gas station, tripping and falling on top of Alvaraz’s car, according to The Orange County Register. Alvarez then grabs an aluminum bat out of his car and charges at Chacon, who grabbed what appeared to be a pipe from his truck.
The two men fight and Alvarez is said to have struck Chacon several times, causing multiple face fractures and body injuries. After striking Chacon in the face, Alvarez fled the scene.
Chacon was taken to to a nearby hospital and received several stitches to his face, which had been bruised purple, making him unrecognizable, said his daughter, Vanessa Chacon-Johnson.
“He’s altered. He doesn’t look like my dad,” an emotional Chacon-Johnson told the Press Enterprise. “His face is double the (normal size) size.”
Alvarez, who was wanted for a probation violation, is now also wanted for attempted murder, Bertagna said. Authorities believe he is still in the area.
KTLA has part of the surveillance video in this report:
