Douglas Epp, a 39-year-old Canadian citizen living in the Crown Heights-area of Brooklyn, attacked Spanish tourist Hugo Alejandre with a hammer on July 30 after, Epp claims, Alejandre and his girlfriend called him a Nazi and a gay.
According to Epp in documents released Tuesday in Manhattan Supreme Court and obtained by the New York Daily News:
“They called me ‘gay’ and a ‘Nazi.’ Something inside me snapped and I grabbed the hammer and attacked the male. This is not my demeanor. I am ashamed that this altercation occurred. This was clearly not the correct reaction.”
The attack took place in City Hall Park where Epp had stopped to read the newspaper after looking for a job at a restaurant:
The couple ate pizza on a nearby bench, but then, Epp said, “They had some rude words to say and the ‘Nazi’ term came up on several occasions.”
That’s when he grabbed a hammer from under a park bench hit Alejandre over his left eye with the claw end, cops said.
Is anyone else wondering where that hammer came from? Was it just sitting there or does Epp carry one around in case of emergency?
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Anyway, police immediately arrested the hammer-wielder who at the time gave his name as John Yoos, an American chess master with whom Epp had gone to school but who has lived in Canada since 1999.
Epp is being held without bail while Alejandre is licking his wounds back in Barcelona and perhaps rethinking a follow-up visit to the Big Apple.
No word yet on if Epp is indeed a gay or a Nazi…though the use of a hammer would suggest he’s more of a communist.
Myles.
Your editor would have us believe that god is on your side and communists are demons.What a half-wit.
If the resident had shot the tourist,would the editor scream that he must be a Republican?
Myles.
MagicalHurl
I don’t think this is what Peter, Paul, & Mary meant when they sang, “If I Had a Hammer…”
KRNYC
@Myles, I imagine the reference was to the communist symbol of the hammer and sickle.