A nine-year-old boy is in hospital today in a serious condition after being thrown from a 2nd storey balcony by a man who appears to have had no connection with the boy’s family at all.
The horror of the attack has left a community in the neighbourhood of Chelas, Lisbon, in shock.
One householder has described how the attacker picked the child up as if the boy were a doll and dropped him over the side of the building with “complete callousness”.
The little boy “hit a railing” before falling onto a ramp, and by a miracle escaped death.
He nonetheless has serious injuries to his legs and hips, and was described in hospital as being in a “grave condition”.
The attack “came out of nowhere”, explains national tabloid Correio da Manhã.
The child’s father had just left the house, and ‘an unknown man’ with no apparent criminal record, passed him on the stairs of the building, asking for the home of someone else.
CM says the man knocked on the door of the child’s parents, and when the mother answered – thinking it must be her husband returning for something he had forgotten – the man dragged her along a corridor, punching her, and trying to push her over the side of the building.
It was at this point that the child ran to his mother’s aid. The assailant is alleged to have picked the boy up saying to the terrified woman, “if you’re not going over, I will throw him”.
The chaotic scenes – which brought the father running back to try and help his wife and child – ended with the attacker apparently then ‘feigning death’ – lying still on the floor until police arrived to remove him.
The man, named as Nuno Mendes, will be appearing before magistrates today (Thursday).
He is expected to be cited for attempted murder (in the case of the child) and GBH – though CM suggests he suffers from psychiatric disorders.
What happens next will be on everyone’s minds, as Mendes’ parents are said to “live in the area”, and locals have vowed there will be a public lynching, says CM, if their 39-year-old son is released.
“No-one does that to a child”, one told the paper.
Photo: of the Chelas neighbourhood
