Police are searching for four men who beat, stripped, pistol whipped and kidnapped a 23-year-old man in New Haven early Sunday morning and said they do not believe it was a random attack.
Police said they responded to a home on Newhall Street at 12:49 a.m. to investigate an assault and found the victim in a bloodied T-shirt, underpants and socks.
Ripped pieces of duct tape were still on his wrists and ankles. He had cuts on his head and his eyes were bruised and swollen shut, police said.
Officers called for medical help and the victim said he’d been with two friends and they were planning to go to a nightclub, but wanted to smoke “weed” first, so the driver pulled into a yard on Thompson Street. Once the car was stopped, a stranger opened the door and pulled the victim from the car, then four men beat him, the victim told police.
As the victim fought back, the assailants pistol-whipped him and lost consciousness, he told police.
When he regained consciousness, a man was pointing a gun at him and the friends he had been with drove away, he told police.
The assailants took the victim’s outer clothes off, bound his hands and feet and took him for a ride until letting him out of the car and assaulting him again, police said.
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Officers found duct tape nearby and the victim’s bloodied clothing in an unoccupied home near Newhall and Cave streets, police said.
Investigators suspect the attack was not random and the victim was targeted, police said.
He was treated at Yale-New Haven Hospital and has been released.
