A mail carrier was bloodied and bruised when he was attacked by a group of four teens or young men outside a Brooklyn store after an argument Wednesday afternoon, he and authorities say.
The 50-year-old mailman was making his rounds in Fort Greene when he stopped inside a deli on Fulton Street and got into an argument with the quartet of suspects inside, authorities say.
The suspects left the store, then returned a few minutes later. Surveillance video shows the suspects causing a ruckus inside the bodega and the mailman can be seen getting on his phone, calling 911.
One of the suspects then flips the hat off the mail carrier's head, and the postal worker runs after them with his fist up.
One of the suspects can be seen flipping over the man's mail cart as others toss punches and kick the man. After the onslaught, they run away on Fulton Street as another man -- later identified as Shyam Nalam -- calls 911.
"What I see, he's trying to protect himself," Nalam said of the mail carrier.
Afterward, the mail carrier was taken to the hospital and treated for scrapes to his face and an injury to his right eye. He was later released.
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Community members say they're upset about the attack on the mailman.
"I see him all the time," said Katherine Watterson. "He's a really nice guy."
It's the second attack on mail carriers in as many days. On Tuesday, a woman and her dog attacked a mail carrier who mistakenly delivered a kennel to her house in Dyker Heights.
Anyone with information in regards to the Fort Greene attack is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 800-577-TIPS.
