This week, two Brooklyn men were arrested for allegedly beating a Massachusetts man in Greenwich Village early Sunday morning. 24-year-old victim Kevin McCarron was bashed with a tire iron, baseball bat, and other weapons, as well as punched and stomped repeatedly, by a gang of men around 5:15 a.m. Sunday in front of Artichoke Pizza on MacDougal Street. One of men charged in the attack, Hatem Farsakh, claims he had nothing to do with the attack, and was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

A Massachusetts man is savagely beaten outside pizza shop in Greenwich Village from Gothamist on Vimeo.

“I was eating a falafel sandwich at Mamoun’s — you guys know Mamoun’s? Great sandwich,” Farsakh told the News. “So, I come out and I see a crowd of people like pushing and shoving. I’m trying to break it up and I’m slapping them on the face. I’m like, ‘Wake up! You guys are drunk and s---, let’s everybody go home!’ "

Farsakh says he and his friends were out celebrating Sherif Rizk’s graduation from Brooklyn College. Rizk has also been arrested and charged in the beatdown; both Brooklyn men have been charged with attempted murder and assault. Six other men who were with McCarron, including his relative Patrick McCarron, all suffered minor injuries. McCarron, who is from Andover, is still in critical condition at Weill Cornell Medical Center; according to the Eagle-Tribune, he is "fighting for his life" after suffering a fractured skull.

It's not entirely clear what prompted the assault, but witnesses told the News that one of the attackers may have been sitting on top of the car McCarron and his friends drove into the city that evening. But Rizk claims McCarron and his friends initially attacked his group: “The other guys he said was so drunk, the other guys, beating up one of his friends, so he tried to stop them, so one of the guys punched him in the face,” Rizk’s father, Ahmad Rizk, told CBS, adding that his son had a serious eye injury. Farsakh's Bensonhurst neighbor called him "a very good kid" and couldn't believe he would have been involved in a fight: "I've known him for seven years," Tarek Kasen told NBC. "I've never seen him hitting anybody or insulting anybody."

But McCarron’s friend April Lyskowsky told CBS he is not a troublemaker, and has worked until last year at an Americorps program outside Boston counseling young people. “The type of violence that was imposed upon him was the kind of thing that he would work with our young people so hard to make sure that that’s not the path that they chose,” said Lyskowsky. Police say the investigation is ongoing, and they are still trying to identify the other attackers from the beatdown.