Over the weekend, two people were attacked inside a basement social club in Brooklyn by an 83-year-old man “walking around like a samurai” with a machete.
According to the police report, the unidentified elderly man was seen arguing with a 28-year-old woman and 35-year-old Brian Espinal when the machete was wielded, but victim Brian Espinal says there was no argument. When telling reporters about the incident, Espinal said, “There was no altercation, no disagreement. I was actually watching a YouTube video on an iPad with my buddy, and all of a sudden I feel something hit me in the back of my head. And then a girl came out of the bathroom, and he hit her too.”
Espinal believes that the attack was totally random, as he had seen the elderly man at the same basement social club on Scholes Street before. Espinal said the old man “was always telling jokes, talking about being a Vietnam vet. He had no family. He had nobody. I think he was on some medication and maybe didn’t take it last night, because he was walking around like a samurai with his trench coat and this sword, a machete.”
The elderly man swung the blade at Espinal and hit him in the back of the neck, which was luckily semi-protected by the bill of his backward-facing hat. Espinal said, “I didn’t see what happened after he hit me. I just went down. I didn’t know if he hit an artery. I didn’t know if I was gonna die.” Espinal made it out of the altercation with 30 stitches in the 5-inch gash on his neck, but no major arteries hit, while the girl was struck in the forehead.
The two victims as well as the elderly attacker were taken by ambulance to the hospital. The machete-wielding attacker was taken to Kings County Hospital because of a large cut on his hand that they believe could have been self-inflicted.
This is not the first excitement this neighborhood has seen, as neighbors report the basement social club’s building as being a problematic place. The club is apparently known around the area for gambling parties, noise and fighting. An anonymous neighbor told reporters that “this is not the first time” saying that partiers from the building “fight, they throw bottles, they talking and talking. It’s terrible. I don’t know exactly what’s happening down there. It’s illegal.”
The police reported that the stabbing was their first call to the building this month, but based on what the neighbors had to say, it seems more likely that it isn’t their first time getting complaints of the building this month.