BEAT-SLAY BUST
Susp ruined our lives and his: victim’s kin
A 28-year-old man with no arrest record has been charged in the unprovoked beating death of a senior citizen on a Brooklyn street, police said Thursday.
James Woods was arrested Wednesday for beating Angel Diaz in a caught-on-camera attack the night of Sept. 13 near the victim’s home in Boerum Hill, authorities said.
“He’s a 28-year-old man who killed someone, who ruined his life and ended my brother’s life,” the victim’s distraught sister, Abigail Diaz Crofts, 67, told the Daily News Thursday.
“It’s horrible that my brother died the way he did. I really believe there’s something wrong with him (Woods). Who would want to hit an 80-year-old person? It’s just a really sad situation all around.”
Diaz Crofts said detectives couldn’t tell her much about the motive for the vicious attack.
Video shows an assailant storming up to Diaz on Hoyt. St. near Schermerhorn St. and walloping him without warning.
Diaz tried in vain to defend himself with his cane but after the first punch knocked him to the concrete curb his attacker continued the assault, punching him more than a dozen times.
Diaz was taken to New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital and was later transferred to Bellevue Hospital.
He turned 80 on Oct. 3 and died there Oct 29. His death has been deemed a homicide by the city medical examiner.
Diaz was emotionally disturbed and while the attack appeared to be random police at the time were investigating if Woods was somehow provoked by Diaz’s condition.
Abigail Diaz, the victim’s niece, told the Daily News after his death about visiting him in the hospital.
“He couldn’t move,” she said. “He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t eat. His face was fractured and swollen. I was like, ‘This is how he’s going to die, after everything he’s been through in his life?’ ”
Diaz was buried at St. Raymond’s Cemetery in the Bronx. The family held a memorial service for him at Our Lady of Guadalupe on W. 14th St. in Manhattan, the same church where Diaz received first communion.
“He was funny, he loved his mother, they lived together until she died at age 89,” Diaz Crofts said. “They were always together. He liked to draw and was an artist. He was my brother.”
Woods was arraigned in Brooklyn Criminal Court Wednesday on charges including felony assault, menacing and harassment. Bail was set at $30,000.
Woods’ family declined to comment when reached at their Fort Greene home Thursday. He has no criminal history before his arrest this week, according to police sources.