OPA-LOCKA, Fla. – Police arrested an Opa-locka man Tuesday after they said he beat a man with bricks when the victim refused to let him take a hit from his crack pipe late last month.
According to an Opa-locka police report, during the afternoon hours of Dec. 22, the victim told police he was sitting down on a grocery cart on Sinbad Avenue, between Superior Street and Atlantic Avenue, when a man he called “Urkel” came up to him and asked him for a smoke of his pipe.
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Police said the victim refused and told “Urkel,” later identified as 29-year-old Tony Harris, that he would “break the pipe” if he kept asking.
According to the report, Harris responded, “without notice,” by hitting the man with a brick in the front of his face, causing him to stumble and suffer a fractured nose.
But police said Harris wasn’t done.
After a scuffle, police said Harris took the victim’s jacket, which contained money and then grabbed a brick in each hand, causing the suspect to flee towards a nearby convenience store.
The man told police that Harris threw one of the bricks, hitting him in the back of the head, causing a laceration severe enough to require staples, the report states.
The man told officers that he ran towards the intersection of Northwest 135th Street and 30th Avenue, where he tripped after his “feet began to hurt.”
Police said Harris caught up to the man and hit him four more times in the head.
The report states the victim was able to get away and run to a nearby apartment complex.
After the man or someone else flagged down police, officers wrote that medics took the victim to Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport and then to Jackson Memorial’s Ryder Trauma Center for treatment.
As of Wednesday evening, Harris was being held without bond at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on charges of felony battery and armed robbery with a weapon.