A dispute over where a landscaper was working has ended with two arrests on Long Island. According to News 12, a father and son have been taken into custody after a worker was beaten in Massapequa Park, an attack that was captured on surveillance video and has since been shared publicly.
The victim has described the violence in stark terms. Tony Ayala says the footage shows two of his client's neighbors striking him with a metal baseball bat and a wooden rod, turning a routine day of yard work into a frightening assault.
By his account, the trouble started with a shouted demand. Ayala says the confrontation began when a neighbor, Brian McKeon, started yelling at him to stay off his property, escalating quickly from words into something far more dangerous.
Ayala maintains he had done nothing wrong. He says he was mowing his client's lawn next door and had only briefly crossed the public sidewalk in front of the home, insisting that he and his crew did not step onto McKeon's property as they worked.
It was at that point, he says, that the situation turned violent. Ayala says McKeon and his son, Brian McKeon Jr., attacked him with the weapons, leaving him in shock and feeling that he had no choice but to try to defend himself, asking who would have stopped the attack if he had not.
The case has now moved into the legal system. Both men were arrested by Nassau County police and arraigned on Wednesday morning, as the video of the beating continues to circulate and draw attention to the confrontation.