Charles Frederick was at Pittsburg's Buchanan Park last Thursday when he was beaten and robbed by a man he didn't know. His bravery moved police officers so much so that they looked to help replace the stuff stolen from him.
Frederick, who's on the autism spectrum, said he fell to the ground as a man punched him "all over from my forehead to my neck" before taking his cell phone.
The college student said he managed to get up and borrow a park worker's phone to call the police.
"He came to us, and he gave me a great statement of what happened, and everything was to a T," said Officer Joe Berti of the Pittsburg Police Department. "He described everything perfectly to me. Helped us tremendously when we were out looking for the person responsible for the incident."
Berti was so moved by Frederick's bravery that he collected money to replace his cell phone, delivering the gift to Frederick's home on Monday.
"Just to help Charles out as much as we could," Berti said. "Do a little something for him for how much he helped us during the incident."
Frederick said he was grateful to the police for arresting his attacker and buying him a phone. He added that it was all so unexpected.
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"Thank you very much for doing this for me, and I didn’t expect it," he said.
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