SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) - Two university of Utah students say they were beat up at a Halloween party because they're European.
ABC 4 Anchor Kim Fischer talked with one of the students. He didn't want to show his face, or say his name for fear of retaliation, but he said it's important people know things like this really do happen.
"I didn't think stuff like this really happened over nothing," he said.
The 19-year-old said it started off like any other Halloween. He and his friend stopped by a party to see another friend and almost instantly started getting heckled by a group because of their Lithuanian names.
"He started going off on how much better America was and everything and how they're going to bomb us and stuff. We just kind of ignored it," he said.
Then, he said the group began throwing beer cans at them. His friend had enough, and pushed one of his tormenters, which caused a little scuffle.
"After that we decided to leave and while we were outside the same group of people came back with more people and weapons and just assaulted us,” he said.
He was hit in the back of the head with a baseball bat, causing a concussion. But his friend was the target of most of the blows. He was beat in the face with brass knuckles. Both ended up in the hospital, which is not where they expected to be on Halloween night.
"They were just looking to fight which I don't understand why you would want to ruin a holiday like that but... I don't know," he said.
Thursday, the student spent some time on Facebook and said he was able to track down some of his attackers through other friend’s pages. He's now handing that information over to police.
