The Villa Rica man who allegedly stabbed another man outside the Georgia Dome following this month’s NFC Championship game told Channel 2 Action News he was acting in self defense, and a video posted on YouTube appears to back up those claims.
James Lewis McCoy, 46, was cited for disorderly conduct in the Jan. 20 incident, which left an unidentified 35-year-old man in stable condition at Grady Memorial Hospital.
McCoy told Channel 2 that he was first attacked by a stranger outside the Dome.
“Why this guy chose me, I have no clue,” McCoy said.
“Never said a word to the guy, don’t even know the guy,” McCoy told the station. “He hit me, and once he hit me, the mob started beating me.”
The YouTube video shows one man continuously punching McCoy, with several other people also landing punches.
McCoy said that he remembered that he had a knife in his pocket.
“I reached in and I grabbed my knife, and I started trying to cut my way out, trying to save my life,” he said. “They still found a way to get my knife out of my hand and continued to beat me.”
McCoy said the beating stopped when an officer pepper-sprayed the crowd.
“God sent me an angel to save my life, because if he hadn’t pepper-sprayed those people, I probably would be dead right now,” McCoy told Channel 2.
McCoy’s attorney, Mac Pilgrim, said his client “did nothing wrong. He did nothing outside the bounds of the law of the state of Georgia.”
“I was just a man that was trying to save his own life,” McCoy said. “And they were people that were trying to take my life.”
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