MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A man, trying to do the right thing, was attacked near the BP gas station at Cleveland and Poplar Avenue around 4:00 Wednesday afternoon, shortly after students got out of school.
“I saw look like near 50 come through here running. They went through that way,” said security guard Robert Bean. “Two boys were fighting. The man tried to break it up and they jumped on him. The paramedics came over too. It was terrible.”
It’s something he has seen before. He said it starts with students leaving nearby Northwest Prep Academy, an alternative school.
“They’ll come over here just for the fight,” said Bean.
Police confirmed a man told them he was trying to break up a fight between a group of kids, but the kids turned on him, hitting him in the face, leaving cuts and bruises.
“Police need to be here everyday when they get out of school,” saidBean.
In April 2015, WREG showed you the security camera video that caught a teen melee outside the same BP gas station. A man escorting a frightened woman to her car as a crowd of teens hung around was then attacked himself. The video shows teens throwing punches after the man told them to move back.
“One of the kids came from behind and sucker punched me,” victim Orrden Williams told WREG in 2015.
Police later made arrests in that case.
As for the attack Wednesday, we are told there is surveillance video, though a worker at BP said their camera was not working.
Police said when they arrived, the kids scattered.
The man attacked was treated at the hospital and is going to be okay, but he could not describe the person who hit him.
It’s all a little unnerving for people like Willie Williams who frequent this area.
“That’s just the way they are now. They are in a gang and if one go, then they follow,” said Williams.
WREG contacted Shelby County Schools about the students who may have been involved in this attack and what after-school security they have in the area. We are waiting to get more information, but they said they do have security on campus at Northwest and MPD provides extra support.
