ASTORIA – The relatives of 79-year-old Hristos Massalis, who was beaten with a bat by a 36-year-old man in Astoria Park, who was arrested shortly after, said they were shocked.

According to a report by The National Herald, with information from the website of the Queens Post, Massalis was hit with a metal baseball bat on the head and then, after falling to the ground, the assailant hit him again, resulting in fractures to his skull, eye socket, and face.

The attack took place outside the Marine Terrace apartment complex near the park at 6:20 PM on Saturday, and shortly before Lloyd had wounded Jamal Bermudez, 46, on the northeast side of Astoria Park.

The 79-year-old Greek-American was taken in a very serious condition to New York-Presbyterian Queens Hospital, where he immediately underwent surgery and is still hospitalized.

“The whole family is in shock. We can’t believe what happened. It’s crazy,” said the victim’s 38-year-old daughter, Kaliope Massalis, adding that her father was taking one of his usual daily walks when the attacker attacked him.

According to the report of the New York Daily News, Massalis comes from Agrinio, from where he immigrated to the United States in 1982. He works in the catering industry and, in his son, Steve Massalis, says he is “very loved by the community.”

“He’s a very kind man. He is important to his community. He helped everyone however he could. Everyone in his community knows him,” he adds.

In any case, the unprovoked attack on the elderly alarmed the residents, as well as the rest of the building’s occupants, who stress that even the evening walk is no longer such a safe activity.

“It’s very bad. No one from the building goes outside anymore after 8 PM,” said Bella Sanchez, a tenant of the building where the 79-year-old lives.

With a criminal past, the offender

Matthew Lloyd, 36, who will return to Queens courthouse for a hearing Sunday, is a person known to authorities from a previous arrest and conviction.

Lloyd, a white man with a bold tattoo on his neck, was convicted in 2019 of robbery, for which, however, he was sentenced to up to three years in prison but soon released.

The remarkable thing about his story is that this robbery was directed against the business he previously worked for, which was a tattoo art center owned by 40-year-old Jasmine Barnes.

Speaking to the New York Daily News, Barnes said her former employee’s personality “changed for the worse” when he started using drugs. In fact, this inclination, as well as the fact that he also used it during working hours, was the reason for his dismissal, which also led to the robbery, possibly as a revenge act.