What began with a car crash in Fort Worth, ended with a good Samaritan dead.
Police are searching for a man in a brutal attack.
The victim, Mark Hague, was a homeless man who reportedly tried to help after the crash.
The 56-year-old died Monday morning at JPS hospital in Fort Worth.
His boss, Mary Perez, says she witnessed the best and worst in humanity in a matter of minutes on Saturday evening.
A sign was posted outside Enchiladas Ole on North Sylvania Avenue on Monday. It read: "Closed for a family emergency."
“I just couldn’t open today,” said Perez. “I couldn’t cook.”
Perez is devastated after losing a special employee.
“Every morning he beats the employees to work,” she said.
Hague wasn’t exactly a full-time worker.
“He’s always wanting to know ‘Can I take out the trash?’ ‘Can I help you with this?’ He just wanted to belong,” said Perez.
Hague slept near the busy restaurant for the past three years.
“He was just a kind, gentle soul,” she said.
He would often work in order to eat, although the restaurant is known for feeding the homeless at no cost.
Perez posted a video on her Facebook page showing her and Hague dancing on Saturday morning.
There was a crash several hours later in front of the restaurant.
“We hear this horrible boom! I didn’t know if a house had exploded,” said Perez. “I see customers run outside.”
Several cars had been involved in a terrible crash, some were visibly injured.
A large tree was struck and destroyed on impact.
Some customers and restaurant employees began to pull some of the victims out of their vehicles. As onlookers gathered around firefighters, Hague had reportedly tried to calm the crowd.
“He was telling people ‘she’s not going to die. She’s going to be alright,’” said Perez. “I heard this lady tell him ‘get the ‘f’ out of here!’ So he turns around and says the same thing back to her.”
Perez says she then saw Hague walking across the street when out of nowhere a man approached him.
“I see this big guy just go at him. Punch him, hit him in the face. You just see Mark just fall completely down, hit the ground and in an instant that guy went around, as soon as Mark hit the ground he kicked him in the head. Kicked him in the head as hard as he could. His boot came off,” she said.
Stunned bystanders watched as the attacker ran away.
An employee also ran after the man, according to Perez.
She insists Hague did nothing to provoke such an attack.
“He can’t talk that well because he’s missing a lot of teeth and he has a deep voice,” she said trying to understand why someone who hurt him.
“For no reason! I mean we’re helping these accident victims and you want to cause an accident, you know! Over words! Over words,” she exclaimed.
Perez can’t shake the violent attack.
“It’s the lack of respect for human life,” she said. “It was just a senseless, brutal attack for nothing. For nothing.”
The attacker and the woman involved in the verbal altercation with Hague may be connected, according to Perez.
Fort Worth police say they are investigating the attack. Detectives do not want to release much information to the public regarding the suspect so as to not jeopardize their investigation.
