A Massachusetts man was found guilty of assaulting a woman - because she didn’t say “good morning” to him.
Ian Atkinson, 34, was convicted by a judge Monday of assault and battery and assault with a dangerous weapon, one year after trying to hit a 59-year-old woman with his car, Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden announced.
On the morning of July 13, 2023, a woman in Dorchester was watering her plants when Atkinson walked by and said to her: “When people say good morning to you, you should say hi you crazy b****.”
The woman, who was not named in the release, then began filming Atkinson on her cellphone. He got out of the black Mercedes he had entered and “repeatedly punched” the woman in the face before throwing her against the fence.
She bit him, prompting him to stop assailing her.
“After the attack Atkinson drove the Mercedes toward the victim, almost striking her,” the DA said.
Police then arrived at the scene around 9am, finding the woman “bleeding profusely” from her nose. She was taken to a local hospital, where she was told she was suffering from a broken nose, contusions to her head and face, and a broken blood vessel in her left eye.
Both her cellphone video and surveillance footage captured the attack, the DA said. Atkinson was wearing a GPS monitoring device at the time of the attack and was arrested several days later.
His bench trial spanned just three days. On Monday, the judge found Atkinson guilty and sentenced him to two years in state prison followed by two years of probation.
“For this victim, a pleasant summer morning descended into a violent and cruel ordeal for the most inexplicable of reasons. But, even as she was being attacked, she had the presence of mind to record video, and that decision, along with her brave testimony, provided enough evidence for the judge to make his decision,” Hayden said. “I join all the members of the community in thanking this survivor for her courage.”
