Cohoes man recounts vicious attack by a stranger

COHOES – Damien Bacon was home with his girlfriend in Cohoes on December 30, when he heard yelling outside. First, his girlfriend’s mother went out.

“I heard her yelling with a man, so I came down my stairs, my porch, and as soon as he saw me, he met me halfway into my driveway,” he said.

Bacon said he had never seen the agitated man before.

“He basically said somebody called him some names on our street, and I was like, ‘That has nothing to do with us,’ and I said, ‘Who was it?’ And as soon as I said ‘Who was it,’ he punched me in my jaw, broke my jaw, and then I don’t remember anything after he punched me, I just remember my jaw breaking,” said Bacon.

He was slammed on the ground headfirst. He suffered a broken jaw, two skull fractures, plus brain bleeding. He spent 15 days in the hospital.

“Fracture of the orbital, temporal fracture, and brain bleeding, and my jaw was broken. The lower jaw was broken and basically snapped like that,” he said.

Dustin Hallock, 29, of Cohoes, was arrested by police, and charged with felony assault.

Just before that attack, Hallock was involved in another incident on Columbia Street, right off Remsen, when he ended up rear-ending a car that had been stopped at the railroad crossing, said police.

“That person came to the police station to report the accident,” said Todd Waldin, Cohoes Police Chief. “What they said was after they were struck by the suspect, vehicle to vehicle, that he got out and started pounding on the window of the car, trying to grab the door open. So this person, obviously frightened, decided to drive to the police station.”

Hallock followed her, but left at some point to go back to the area of the collision, coming upon Bacon nearby, said police.

“It’s just like kind of crazy. I don’t understand what would drive him to want to attack me like that. I feel like he just wanted to beat somebody up,” Bacon said.

He said it’s been a tough few weeks.

“A lot. My job. I’ve missed, like, three weeks, and a lot of hospital bills and a lot of trauma for my family.”

Hallock was also ticketed in connection with the collision for allegedly following too closely and leaving the scene of an accident, said police.