82-year-old Tuyen Nguyen was on his daily walk to get a coffee and the local paper on Friday when he was attacked outside a shopping center in Santa Ana, California, suffering injuries that left him in "critical but stable" condition. Shortly after the incident, surveillance footage (see above) showed Nguyen being kicked and punched repeatedly by a so-called "transient man" by the name of Demarrea Chante Barnes. Nguyen told local authorities he had previously encountered Barnes during his morning walk, even generously buying his eventual attacker a cup of coffee on more than one occasion.
"In the past four days we have met so many strangers, and the support is just so amazing," Tuyen's son Pete Nguyen tells the Orange County Register. "We saw the worst of human actions and then we experienced the very, very best of human kindness. We are very grateful." Tuyen Nguyen, a retired auto mechanic, originally moved to nearby Fountain Valley from Vietnam more than four decades ago.
Barnes is described by his family as someone in the throes of mental illness, according to KABC. "This is not the Demarrea we know, not the one we raised," Wilda Wright, Demarrea's great aunt, tells reporters. "This is not him. We send our deepest condolences. We just want to say we're sorry and we apologize and we pray that [the family's] grandfather gets better."
Though Nguyen did suffer broken facial bones and a brain hemorrhage, he is expected to be released from the hospital and relocated to a nursing home soon. Barnes was arraigned Tuesday on charges of felony assault and elder and dependent adult abuse with great bodily injury, though he pleaded not guilty.
