Surveillance footage captures a man assaulting Adam Mercado with a large stick outside a Dallas bar. Mercado seeks help to identify the assailant and cover medical expenses.
Dallas, Bollywood Fever: Surveillance footage outside a downtown Dallas bar captured the shocking moment when a man was struck over the head with a large stick before the assailant fled the scene.
In the footage, an unidentified man can be seen stopping in front of the outdoor section of City Tavern just before 2am on Saturday. He raises a large stick like a baseball bat and slams it into the back of a patron’s head, causing the victim to topple over.
The victim, later identified as Adam Mercado, is seen grabbing his head and rolling into a fetal position. Mercado’s girlfriend, Taylor Monnet, immediately rushes over to check on him and then runs back into the bar to call for help. Meanwhile, the assailant punched a City Tavern employee in the face and escaped.
Dallas police are now searching for the suspect, relying solely on the security footage, according to WFAA. Mercado is asking everyone in Dallas to review the footage to see if they recognize the assailant and to be on the lookout for him in the future.
“I always have my guard up,” Mercado said. “Make sure you keep your head on a swivel—because for 10 seconds, I let my guard down and this happened.”
Mercado explained that he and Monnet went to City Tavern to meet friends for last call on Saturday morning when he first noticed the suspect. The man was standing near the entrance, watching the patrons on the patio while holding a tree branch whittled into a spear at one end.
“Initially, my senses were going crazy, my intuition was going crazy, so I said, ‘You know what, let’s go inside and get a drink,'” he told NBC DFW.
The couple eventually decided to head home just before 2am, and that’s when Mercado felt the blow. “I let my guard down for about 10 seconds and that’s all it took—just a WHACK,” he said. “The sound was loud enough to almost be a gunshot. That’s what scared me.”
As he fell to the ground, Monnet ran into the bar, screaming and begging for help. Police and EMTs arrived at the scene, but the couple turned down an ambulance ride due to cost concerns. Mercado later took himself to the hospital after experiencing ringing in his head and ears and general soreness. He was diagnosed with a concussion after spending six hours in the emergency room.
In the following days, Mercado experienced lingering pain and brain fog and felt afraid to leave his apartment, fearing another random attack. “It’s just been really traumatic, you know, I’ve never had any type of violence done unto me,” he said, describing the experience as “very surreal.”
Despite the trauma, Mercado expressed gratitude for surviving the attack. “I’m grateful and thankful that I’m alive, and I hope this never happens again.”
To help cover his medical expenses, Mercado started an online fundraiser, noting that he is “now faced with medical bills that I cannot afford, accompanied by wages lost over the last few days.” By Thursday morning, the fundraiser had raised over $6,000.
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