FORT WORTH, Texas — A case of mistaken identity apparently prompted an attack at a Fort Worth gas station Sunday in which a 50-year-old man was hit in the head with an electric saw and his son threatened with an ax.
“I’m sorry. I thought you were somebody else,” the attacker reportedly told the father and son before jumping back into his truck and fleeing.
The assault occurred shortly after 2 p.m. at a Valero gas station.
Jose Avila, 25, and his father, Jose DeLeon, had driven separately to the store to get gas when an older model pickup pulled quickly into the parking lot and stopped in front of Avila’s vehicle.
A man then got out of the truck, yelling as he approached Avila with an ax in hand, according to a Fort Worth police report.
“Avila said he could not remember what was being said but only understood ‘You took’ while he was raising the ax at him,” the report states. “Avila feared for his life and felt the male was going to harm him with the ax.”
DeLeon tried to come to his son’s defense, yelling at the man to stop.
The suspect then put his ax in the bed of his pickup and retrieved an electric saw, the report states.
“The male is grabbing it from the saw end and swings it at DeLeon and strikes him with it on the left side of his head, causing a laceration,” the report states.
The father and son were able to get the electric saw away from the man. The man then apologized for his mistake and fled.
Police seized the saw. The father planned to drive himself to the hospital for possible stitches, the report states.
The report describes the suspect as white, about 5-foot-11 and 180 pounds. He wore an orange Whataburger T-shirt and jeans and drove a primer-colored mid-80s pickup with a possible partial license plate of BB3.
