Ronald Poppo, 65, who has been homeless since 1983, is in hospital recovering from his shocking and horrendous wounds. He was the victim of an attack by Rudy Eugene, 31, who was naked and believed to be high on a new uncategorised drug labelled as bath salts which was believed to be similar to a super-strength strain of LSD.
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The incident happened in Miami, Florida on Saturday and was witnessed by a passing cyclist who likened the attacker to a ‘zombie’. Police had to shoot Eugene twelve times to stop the attack.
The attacker, Rudy Eugene (Photo: Miami Police Department)
“When the officer approached him, told him to stop, pointed a gun at him, he turned around and growled like a wild animal and kept eating at the man’s face,” a Miami police officer told US network WPLG-TV.
Drug users who take the ‘bath salts’ find that their body temperature increases to unbearable levels and that they temporarily become ‘extremely strong’ Dr. Paul Adams of Jackson Memorial Hospital told US TV network CBS.
Poppo’s wounds to his face are so extensive that virtually no flesh remains on his face “He had his face eaten down to his goatee. The forehead was just bone. No nose, no mouth,” said Armando Aguilar, a Miami police sergeant.
The victim of the attack, homeless man Ronald Poppo (Photo: Miami Police Department)
Rudy Eugene has a history of minor crime charges, including marijuana, trespassing and an arrest for threatening to kill his mother in 2004, when police used a taser to subdue him. He had a job washing cars, and prior to the attack he had last been seen cycling away after an argument with his girlfriend who had refused to let him borrow her car.
Eugene’s high school friend Victoria Forte said “Rudy was not a face-eating zombie monster. The Rudy we know was a nice gentleman with a warm smile, and funny.”
The extensive injuries (TNT has censored this image)
Eyewitness Larry Vega describes the attack
