DORCHESTER, MASS. (WHDH) - A Boston woman says she was badly beaten outside of a Dorchester restaurant last week and said it started because she refused to give two strangers a dollar bill.
Though her scars are healing, Vanessa Louis relives the moment she was attacked while enjoying her lunch.
“I felt like I was gonna die at one point. I started to pray, like, ‘Alright, I don’t think I’m gonna make it through this,” she said.
Louis said the attack happened outside Flames restaurant on Blue Hill Avenue last Monday after she refused to give two women a dollar bill.
“They said that I needed to leave their territory, their neighborhood. I said, ‘no,’ and then they just started assaulting me,” she said. “I got kicked in the head. I got punched in the head. I got my hair ripped out. My head hit the concrete multiple times when they shoved me down.”
Boston police said they have charged the two women accused of participating in the random attack. One of them is facing aggravated assault charges for throwing a bottle at Louis.
“If that was an elderly person, they would not have made it through that. If that was a younger child, like a 12-year-old, they wouldn’t have made it,” Louis said.
She now holds onto a bag of hair that was ripped off her head as a reminder of what happened to her and as a warning to others in the hopes that something like that never happens to anyone else.
“What if that was your child and someone did that to them?” Louis asked. “Just because maybe they didn’t look like you or sound like you or have the same background as you. That doesn’t mean they can’t have lunch somewhere. That’s crazy.”
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