Man with autism collecting petition signatures attacked in Lynwood

LYNWOOD, Calif. - Watching the security camera video you can only imagine how frightening it was for Adam Foltz who kept thinking, "I was afraid I was going to get hurt, That they were going to pull out some kind of a weapon."

Foltz is a 37-year-old man living with autism. He's high functioning; has worked a number of jobs. He has a county caseworker and Sunday he was working for a company that gets petition signatures for things like ballot measures when he was faced with danger. He approached two men and asked "…if they were registered to vote in Lynwood." 

You have to be registered voter in order to sign a petition. He said one started cussing at him. He walked away. "Then they followed me and that's when they got out of the car and started to curse more and then they started swinging at me and shoving me knocking my stuff out of my hands," Foltz said. "I was trying to defend myself. I grabbed the one guys shirt and tried to get him off of me. I was fearful I was going to get badly hurt."

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Foltz says they didn't try to steal his wallet, cell phone, nothing. He thinks they were just bullying him in a very violent way. He said, "In a lot of ways I feel like it was bullying… just the way it was done. I think if they wanted to hurt me more they could of."

The Sheriffs Department says that because of his disability - legally - Foltz is a member of a "protected class" which means the DA can charge the case as a hate crime and penalties can be increased. He says he’d like his attackers, who have not yet been identified, to turn themselves in.

Luckily, he wasn’t seriously injured.