Convenience Store Employee Arrested for Assaulting Black Customer Having a Seizure

North Carolina police have arrested a convenience store employee after a video showed him assaulting a Black customer who was having a seizure.

Per WRAL, 56-year-old Gregory Evans had a seizure during a stop at the Princess Market convenience store earlier this month. In the clip of the incident that has since gone viral, Evans can be seen shaking and struggling to keep himself steady as the employee confronted him. Things then got physical, with the employee beating Evans with a “wooden stick-like object” and yelling at him to leave. As a result of the assault, Evans was hospitalized for his injuries.

After the video sparked outrage in the local Rocky Mount community, the employee was identified as 68-year-old Sobhi Hassan. He was arrested by the Rocky Mount Police Department and charged with simple assault this week. Officials said the incident was reported to authorities on Dec. 22, and an arrest warrant for Hassan was issued six days later. 

During a community meeting this week, Evans’ sister Edith Cooper said that her brother is doing “okay” but he’s “a little slow, and he doesn’t have full mobility of his body at this time.” Some local residents did protest the Princess Market store following the incident, and some said the store had showed a history of “negative and discriminatory” behavior in the past. The woman who rents the store to Hassan’s family, Elizabeth Hedrick, said she has not decided what to do after seeing the video and that she hasn’t spoken with them directly as of yet.