Colorado Tourist Visits New Orleans, Gets Assaulted by Local Wildlife

Mark Whittaker Allen.

There’s nothing wrong with going on safari in New Orleans. To ensure a safe trip, however, you need to follow the rules: remain in the vehicle at all times, drive carefully and don’t provoke the animals.

Mr. Allen and his friends were just walking around without a care in the world.

You’re not Jane Goodall, Mark.

Those gorillas could have torn you to sheds.

Nola:

Police arrested an 18-year-old man after police say he attacked a group of tourists from Colorado Sunday (Feb. 10).

Mark Hunter turned himself into the New Orleans Police Department Friday afternoon and was booked with second-degree battery in connection with an early morning attack at the edge of the French Quarter and Central Business District, police said.

The beating left one man, Mark Whittaker Allen, 30, hospitalized with missing teeth and a shattered jaw, Allen told NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune.

In a news release Friday morning, NOPD said the group of tourists, who said they exchanged words with a group of people on a party bus near Canal Street and St. Charles Avenue, started walking away from the site of the argument when one of the people from the bus “allegedly punched the victim from the rear on the right side of his face and knocked him unconscious.”

One of the tourists then called 911, “as an assault reportedly began on a second victim,” the release states.

Allen’s friend Matt Wasserman suffered a bruised eye in the attack, said Gabrielle Lee, Allen’s girlfriend who was among the five-person group.

Mark Hunter, the lead attacker.