Landlord completely smashes homeless man’s face in – however he is acquired an excellent purpose

A landlord absolutely smashed a homeless man’s face in – but it turns out he actually had a good reason.

Chinatown landlord Brian Chin claims he was defending himself when he laid in on the homeless man, who was wielding a weapon. Chin has now released a chilling new video footage of the encounter.

“I just wanted to get home to my wife and kids,” said 32-year-old Harvard fellow Chin, recalling the moment the man began swinging a nail-studded piece of wood at him.

READ MORE: Hotpants-wearing mum pulls up at fight to help daughter smash nemesis’ face in

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Psychology graduate Chin said the frightening encounter began around 8.30pm on Saturday. He noticed a homeless man laying on the ground near the subway station at Chrystie and Grand streets in Manhattan.

Chin said he approached the man and asked if he was okay. “I recognised him because he was a panhandler that has been frequently hanging out on Grand Street. He has never been violent to me,” Chin explained.

When the man didn’t respond, Chin said: “I ask him, ‘Are you OK, man? Do I have to call the cops? Do I have to call the ambulance?’ Nothing.” As per the video footage, Chin then kicked the man, but he claimed it was only a “tap” on the man’s backside to check if he had overdosed, reports New York Post.

“We have so many drug overdoses and deaths and pretty much every conceivable horror that you can imagine,” Chin said. At this point, the man suddenly woke up, screaming. “I was like, ‘Whoa, dude, dude, don’t let me call the cops.’ Something about the word ‘cops’ just triggered him,” he added. The man then picked up a metal folding chair and started smashing everything around him.

Chin briefly left the scene to go to his nearby office to use the bathroom but returned, still haunted by the brutal slaying of his tenant Christina Yuna Lee two years prior. “Especially after the murder, if someone is acting violent, I just like to stand by the front door, just to make sure that no one gets followed in, all my tenants are safe,” Chin said.

When Chin returned, the homeless man had come back looking for him, now armed with a “thick club with nails spiked through it”. He said: “That’s when he pulled the club from his back, raised it above his head and started charging at me. If I had not moved out of the way these multiple times, quite possibly I would be dead.”

The man stopped, giving Chin the chance to disarm him. “I charge at him. I do not hit him. I attempt to grab the weapon with both hands … and we start to fall down onto the ground,” he said. “I try to keep wrestling the weapon away from him with my left hand, and I strike with my right hand for a period of two seconds.”

Footage shows Chin punching the man six times in the head while on the ground. Chin then stands up with the club, backs away, and calls for someone to notify the police.

The homeless man was taken to the hospital with injuries so severe he couldn’t give his name to the police and had no ID on him. He will be charged with menacing once identified.

Chin said he left the man with just a bloody nose and claimed the more severe “eight or nine-inch” head wound happened after police arrived when the man stumbled and fell onto the pavement. “I feel awful. I never want anyone to get hurt,” said Chin, a former Army reservist with a specialization in Psychological Operations.

Chin believes he was wrongfully charged by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, arguing that “multiple witnesses” supported his claim that he was defending himself.

Chin now worries about facing a potential seven-year prison sentence. “Why is my life being upended, my teaching career destroyed?” Chin asked. “People think I’m just a landlord, you know, but my passion, my real job is, you know, I’m a teaching fellow at Harvard University for the last six years.

“Why is this happening to me when I was only defending my life from a man who unprovokedly attacked me with a deadly weapon?”

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