A soft-spoken, 26-year- old Korean immigrant was brutally bashed on the head by a thug as he returned home to his Queens building, police said yesterday.
Heon Lee said he’s been afraid to return to work or to leave his Flushing home ever since the Sept. 26 attack.
“I’m staying home all the time,” Lee said. “Before [the attack], I didn’t think it was so dangerous here. But I’m changing my thinking.”
Lee, who works in a Queens photo studio, did not report the attack to police until Wednesday, after he had spent five days in New York Hospital/Queens. He said he did not contact police until his release because he felt he wasn’t strong enough to talk to detectives.
Lee told police the attacker – a man in a black and yellow hooded sweatshirt – hit him with a brick, but police said the wound is horseshoe-shaped and inconsistent with a brick.
But cops believe Lee’s contention that he was attacked after returning home at 3 a.m. after a night of socializing at a friend’s house.
Police do not believe the attack was related to the murder of Jong Rim Lee, who was attacked with a cobblestone in Flushing and died at New York Hospital/Queens the same day Heon Lee was accosted.
On Wednesday, police charged two teens with five strong-armed robberies against Asians in Flushing.
Police said the suspects – 17-year-old Maurice Kelly, who is black, and a 14-year-old Asian, whose name was not released because he is a juvenile – intimidated or beat their victims until they handed over money.
The attacks took place between Sept. 1 and Sept. 26. None of the victims was badly hurt, although in the first case, a 37-year-old pedestrian was struck with some sort of club.