Beatdown is no ‘joke’

Vic in hosp tells of kids attack

ALL HE WANTED was a late night meal — but a Brooklyn man’s trip to a Shake Shack instead left him with a knuckle sandwich.

Two days after he was knocked out by a heartless teen, the 43-year-old insurance executive was struggling to understand the callous assault outside the burger palace in DUMBO.

The beatdown ended with one of the attacker’s friends posing for a photograph with the unconscious victim.

“I don’t get these kids who think this is a joke,” the victim said from his hospital bed. “That it’s funny to knock someone to the ground and then run away.”

The man ordered a chicken sandwich and fries at the Shake Shack on Old Fulton St. about 10 p.m., according to the victim and cops.

He said he went to check on his two French bulldogs outside when he noticed a group of teens near the canines.

“There was a group of four or five kids harassing my dogs, kind of taunting them,” recalled the victim, who requested anonymity. “Everybody wants to pet my dogs . . . I don’t mind when people do that. But these kids were being aggressive and demeaning.”

He was trying to get the kids to back off when one of them threw an oversized styrofoam cup at him, prompting the group to take off, the victim said. “I yelled after them, something to the effect of, ‘Yeah, throw something and run, coward!’ And a couple of them turned around and started coming at me,” he said. “And then somebody from somewhere else blindsided me.”

A witness said one of the teens, who had hung back throughout the encounter, took off his jacket before winding up and slugging the man from behind.

The victim crumpled from the blow and slammed his head on the concrete — leaving him with a fractured skull.

The boys were not done with him yet. Before fleeing the scene, one of them ran up to the unconscious man and snapped a photo, the witness said.

Medics rushed the man to Brooklyn Methodist Hospital where he was still recovering in the intensive care unit and being monitored in case he needs emergency surgery.

The victim, who lives nearby, said he luckily managed to reach out to a neighbor to come pick up his dogs from the scene.

“I was very concerned about the dogs. I live alone so I didn’t know who would take care of them that night,” he said.

Tears welled in his eyes as he described his injuries to a reporter. He had tried to return home Thursday but doctors convinced him to stay.

“The doctors here told me that this is a life-threatening situation,” he said. “I wanted to go home very badly. And they talked me out of it. They made a very compelling case.”

Cops reported no arrests in the brutal beatdown.