Milwaukee police make arrest in case where man attacked with battery acid

MILWAUKEE — Milwaukee police on Sunday arrested a man they said threw battery acid at another man, causing second-degree burns.

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The 61-year-old man, whose identity has not been revealed, was charged with aggravated battery, WISN reported.

Mahud Villalaz, 42, a U.S. citizen who grew up in Peru, said he was attacked Friday night by a man at a bus stop near a restaurant, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. Villalaz said the man berated him and then threw acid from a metal bottle into his face, the newspaper reported.

According to WISN, the verbal exchange occurred after the man took issue with the way Villalaz parked his truck.

"Because I was parked wrong. I'm going to my truck, and I move it half a block there. Then I get out to go to the restaurant, and the guy's still there with a bottle in his hands," Villalaz told the television station.

Villalaz answered back when the man called him "an illegal," WISN reported. Villalaz and witnesses told WTMJ the assailant shouted, "Go back to your country," as he threw the acid.

"I think I pissed him off because I told him, 'This is my country. This isn't your country. Everybody came from somewhere else here,'" Villalaz told WISN.

While his family released a statement thanking police for an arrest, Villalaz said he was shaken by the incident.

"I feel scared being an American citizen. I feel scared that I cannot feel protected in my own country with my neighbors," Villalaz told reporters at a news conference Saturday.

Police are investigating the attack as a hate crime, the Journal Sentinel reported.

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