Man Sentenced For Assaulting Homeless Man And Streaming Attack On Facebook Live

PROSPECT-LEFFERTS GARDENS – Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez announced last Friday that a 24-year-old Prospect-Lefferts Gardens resident was sentenced to five and a half years in prison for violently assaulting a 58-year-old homeless man and streaming the attack on Facebook Live.

At approximately 9:35pm on March 24, 2017, Daquan King, entered an elevator at 50 Lincoln Road where he encountered the victim. King began by tormenting the “visibly intoxicated victim” according to the investigation, taking money out of the victim’s pocket, tossing it to the floor, and holding the elevator doors shut, trapping the victim inside for several minutes.

After allowing the man out of the elevator, King reportedly knocked him to the floor, hit him, kicked and dragged the man down a flight of stairs as two of King’s friends watched and laughed.

King then followed the victim to the next level where he started recording the Facebook Live video which shows him kicking the victim from the top of the stairs, sending him flying down 15 steps. King recorded himself laughing and stepping over the victim, who was bleeding from the head. King continued recording as he exited the building and told people along the way to “go to the fifth floor,” boasting that he kicked someone down the stairs and that it was all on Facebook Live. He looked at the camera and said, “When I end this video, go and watch the video,” according to Gonzalez.

An NYPD detective was able to identify the location of the assault from the Facebook video and blood was found on the fourth floor of the building when officers went to investigate. The detective learned that a man with head injuries had been taken from the building to Kings County Hospital.

After identifying the victim from the Facebook Live video, officers spoke with him and  arrested King the next day. Following a guilty plea of second-degree assault, King was sentenced at Brooklyn Supreme Court to five and a half years in prison as well as post-release supervision for five years.

“This cruel and cowardly assault of a defenseless older man was sickening and shameful,” said the Brooklyn District Attorney. “The defendant’s brazen behavior, combined with excellent work by a quick-thinking detective, led to his capture and ensured that justice was done in this case.”