72-year-old Vince Poppa, a victim one of the so-called "catch and grab" attacks within the last two weeks, has a few words to say to the assailants.
"Whoever did it to me, I just hope maybe God will punish them, or I'd get some kind of solace seeing them locked up," Poppa said.
Poppa remains in a hospital bed as his body is wrecked with pain and his mind is wracked with images from the night that caused it all.
"When I was laying there on the ground, I didn't deserve what they were doing," Poppa said.
On the weekend of March 15, Poppa was walking to his Southwest Philadelphia home just 5 blocks from where he grew up and where he ran a once popular corner store.
Out of nowhere, he says, 6 to 10 young teens began punching him, kicking him, and then boldly threatening to take his life.
"I seen the point blank of an automatic pistol, 45 automatic," Poppa said.
The suspects, whose attack was part of a game called 'catch and wreck,' robbed Poppa of $200.
Somehow, Poppa, beaten and bloodied, managed to drag himself home where, in shock, he couldn't sleep, and couldn't bear to look in the mirror. And then, when the shock began to wear off, he began to realize what happened.
"When I started realizing what they did to me, that's when I had the heart attack," Poppa said.
Since arriving at Methodist Hospital, Poppa has managed to cheat death, though barely. He cannot, however, escape the mental anguish or the fear that locks his gaze, and will, he says, force him out of his lifelong and once beloved neighborhood.
For the extremely young people who did it, he says simply this, "Well, they nearly cost me my life; I want some kind of justice."
43-year-old Belinda Moore was also attacked last Friday, by, what police called at the time, these serial attackers. A 12-year-old girl was charged with aggravated assault for that attack.
Police tell Action News, in addition to the 11-year-old arrested in connection with the attack on Vincent Poppa, there may have been others, equally as young, involved.
