Readers of TheBlaze may recall reading about a 19-year-old good Samaritan who lost an eye after being punched in head while standing up for a special-needs boy in November. Bianca Palomera told her attacker to stop bullying the boy — and it cost her.
Well, police earlier this month said they arrested Isaac White-Carter, 20, in connection with the crime, KRON-TV reported. White-Carter was charged with two felonies: mayhem and assault causing great bodily injury, police told the station.
Image source: KRON-TV video screenshot
What’s the background?
Palomera was working as an assistant manager in a Habit Burger Grill in Antioch, California, on Nov. 12 when she said she saw a man harassing a special-needs boy who was standing alone, the station said.
The boy’s older brother worked at the restaurant, and Palomera told KRON she intervened because it was the right thing to do, telling the bully, “You can just leave.”
Palomera told the station the man quickly became hostile toward her, yelling anti-Mexican slurs and punching her multiple times.
“An employee was punched in the face multiple times after protecting an individual with an intellectual disability from being bullied,” police said, according to KRON.
The culprit was with a group of other men, and they all departed in a gray BMW SUV, the station said.
“After he had attacked me, the other people he was with, they just collected their food and left, like nothing had happened,” Palomera said, according to KRON.
Palomera was rushed to a hospital trauma center, the station said: “I thought I was crying, but then I realized that it was blood going down my cheek onto my shirt. At the ER, when they opened it, I asked, ‘Did you open my eye?’ And that’s kind of when I knew I couldn’t see. It was just black.”
Image source: KRON-TV video screenshot
White-Carter admitted to police that he was at the restaurant on the day of the attack and told investigators “his side of the story,” police told KRON, adding that he could face hate crime charges, as police added that “there were statements made during the attack that will be reviewed to see if hate crime charges apply.”
‘Don’t be afraid to step up for somebody’
A GoFundMe page organized by Palomera’s sister has raised more than $225,000 as of Tuesday; the money will help pay for the victim’s medical bills, the station said.
Palomera told KRON that despite her life-altering injury, she hopes others will stand up to bullies: “Don’t be afraid to step up for somebody, whether you know them or not. If you won’t do it, no one else will.”