Dallas' St. Patrick's Day parade and party on Greenville Avenue this weekend was, for all the drinking and debauchery, generally peaceful. According to the final tally Dallas PD sent out on Saturday evening, police arrested seven people for public intoxication and one for DWI, handed out 125 parking tickets, and had 12 cars towed.
The celebration, however, wasn't completely non-violent. Omitted from the final count, possibly because it took place a block off Greenville, was an apparently random beat-down that sent a Tyler man to the hospital with a broken jaw.
According to a police report, 25-year-old Scott Goodwin was walking on the sidewalk in the 5600 block of Anita Street when a man "came up from nowhere and punched him in the face."
See also: Weed At Long Last, Marijuana Activists Allowed to March in Dallas' St. Paddy's Day Parade
Goodwin tried unsuccessfully to defend himself, falling to the ground where the attacker, identified by police as 31-year-old Mustafa Hasan Alkaraoi, kicked him repeatedly in the face.
What precipitated the beating isn't clear from the police report. Alkaraoi, who fled but was arrested a few minutes later after a witness spotted him walking down Greenville Avenue, was subsequently interviewed by a detective, but no motive is listed.
Alkaraoi contacted the Observer after this blog post was published to say the attack was anything but random.
"[H]e hit me first when I was trying to break a fight between him and another woman," he wrote in an email.
An ambulance took Goodwin to Baylor Hospital, where he was treated for a fractured jaw. Alkaraoi was taken to Lew Sterrett on a charge of aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury. He was released earlier this morning after posting a $25,000 bond, according to county records.
Send your story tips to the author, Eric Nicholson.
