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Man Who Put Woman in Coma Over Parking Spot Speaks
By
John Del Signore
Published Mar 7, 2011
Modified Mar 7, 2011
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Courtesy CBS2
By
John Del Signore
Published Mar 7, 2011
Modified Mar 7, 2011
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"I only hit the girl one time," says the man accused of punching a woman so hard that she fell backwards on her head and went into a coma during a fight over a parking space. Oscar Fuller, a 35-year-old Queens electrician with prior arrests for weapons possession and felony assault, was talking to the press this weekend after finally getting out of jail. He's charged with felony assault for punching Lana Rosas during the February 25th dispute, and though he doesn't deny punching her, he claims it was just a reflex because Rosas was attacking him.
Rosas was standing in a parking space on East 14th Street in order to save the spot for her boyfriend around 11 p.m. that night when Fuller pulled up in his white minivan. When she refused to yield the spot, words were exchanged. Fuller claims that when he got out of his vehicle, "Bang, bang, bang, bang, she’s just hitting me, hitting me, and I’m like ‘whoa, whoa.’ So I hit the girl, jump back in my car and pull off. I did not know, in no form or fashion, that she was physically hurt like this." He was arrested the Tuesday after the fight when police traced his license plate using surveillance video. Fuller's lawyer claims this same video will show that his client was acting in self-defense.
"She began hitting me in the face," Fuller tells the Daily News. "It threw me off. It just puzzled me. She hit me like four or five times." After the fight, he went to a friend's birthday party. Meanwhile, Rosas, a petite, 100 pound 25-year-old, was clinging to life. Her skull had to be opened to relieve pressure on her brain, and CBS2 reports that Rosas might die, stay in a coma or have permanent brain damage. "As a man, as a person who believes in God, I would not want to take a person's life," Fuller adds, and tells CBS2, "They’re saying I’m some big guy - I’m only 5’7”…I weigh 150."
Tagged
lana rosas
oscar fuller
parking space
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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