When thugs attack a homeless man, suffering from senile dementia, just because they can, it brings it home that for all the sunshine and beaches, it's not paradise for everybody.

Lutz, a 76-year-old Canadian habitually sits on a bench on Plaza Picasso in Salobreña, surrounded by his belongings, which spill from a shopping trolley that he uses for that task. He doesn’t harm anybody, in fact, he keeps himself to himself.

However, three young men, he explained, set upon him one evening: “They hit me, they left laughing, and I was left bleeding without anyone helping me,” he recounts. Without a word, they pushed him off the bench onto the ground and started hitting him in the face. He pleaded for them to leave him alone, which they did, laughing as they went. Nobody helped him that night; not during the incident or the long hours afterwards – he was invisible.

The Town Hall has condemned the incident and point out that they keep an eye on him to see that he is OK, yet a group of volunteers that helps him claim that he is “abandoned.”

Lutz, as mentioned above comes from Canada where he worked as a computer technician for much of his life. He had been travelling around Spain with his wife when she fell ill and finally succumbed to the illeness. Lutz fell into a deep depression and ended up living on the street, most of the time now in Salobreña.

It was the Town Hall that reported the incident to the Guardia Civil, who are now investigating, starting by asking for any CCTV images of the area where the attack took place.

You would be wrong to think that this is the first time that he has suffered at the hands of the callous amongst us, as many of his pathetic possession have been stolen; not for anybody’s benefit but rather just to deprive him of them. Something very important, however, was stolen from him; his passport.

Social workers from the services department look after him “on a daily basis” for his food and clothing and deny that he lives in a state of abandonment. The showers and bathrooms at the municipal sports cente are available for homeless people from Monday to Saturday mornings and, on numerous occasions, he has been taken there by the Policía Local for this purpose and to the Centro de Salud, as well.

(News: Salobrena, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia – Source: Laura Velasco/Ideal)

Kewords: Homeless Man Attacked, Lutz, Senile Dementia, Social Services, Plaza Picasso, Bench, Passport

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