You know how you should never let strangers into your apartment building? Even the police say, "If you live in an apartment don't be polite and hold the lobby door open for a stranger who has been waiting." But in one Queens building, one resident's stranger turned out to be another resident and the whole thing turned into a fight, one of them getting beaten up and the other arrested.
According to the Post, "Yong Hung Wang, 36, of 35-06 Leavett St., in Flushing, mistook victim John Derounian, 37, for a burglar after Derounian returned to their building Wednesday morning to get his front door key and cell phone, which he had left behind. A shaken Derounian, a paralegal, said he repeatedly told his attacker he was a tenant and even opened his mailbox and showed him his mail. But Wang continued the attack, which left Derounian said left him with bruises, aches and a concussion."
Derounian called Wang a "vigilante" and claims he "pushed me in the chest and said 'You don’t live here! I don’t know you! Get out!’ I told him I did live here. I opened my mailbox and showed him my mail with my name on it but he didn’t care... He kept yelling at me: `I’m going to F**k you up. I’m going to hurt you! I’m going to kick your F*****g ass!’ He held me prisoner in the elevator. I hate to say it but I think it was racist - I think I‘m the only white guy in the building."
The pair agreed to call the police, but the responding officers said they would need to arrest both of them, so they left. Later, when Derounian called police to show them surveillance video, the cops said it wasn't a criminal matter. Finally, after he called Internal Affairs, a lieutenant arrested Wang.
Wang insists, "I called 911 because I thought the complaining witness was trespassing. I wasn't going to let him in the lobby and we got into a shoving match... he looked like a drunk guy or something because he wasn't standing up straight. He was wobbly... I lived here for three years. And I never saw (him) before. I thought he was gonna rob me." He also accuses Derounian of racism, "I said 'Where's your key?' Then he said, Get the f..k out of the way, I live in this building. F..k you, you f..kin Chinese guy." Wang's mother explained that residents are wary of strangers, ever since the 2010 incident where a child was fatally thrown off an apartment balcony.
