The man had already stolen the girl's iPhone, and then kicked her while she was down.
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The suspect first made sure no one was looking, and as the girl was about to walk into her lobby on Holland Avenue in Allerton, he grabbed her from behind, snatched her iPhone 7 Plus, threw her to the ground and kicked her in the face.
The child's mother, who did not want to be named, says the girl was swollen for three days, and her nose and lip are still bruised.
"If the guy wanted her phone or whatever she had in her hand, he was fine to take it. It was fine. I mean, whatever material comes and goes. But what he did after, he kicked her and dropped her to the floor. She's a 10-year-old. You're not supposed to do that to a girl," she said.
The incident happened May 25th - the child had never seen her attacker before that day.
"She's a little scared. She's a little scared to go by herself to the deli, to go to school by herself, but she's doing fine. She doesn't think about that too much, because I try to talk to her, just let it go," the girl's mother said.
Carlos Garcia, 11, said he heard the girl from his fourth floor apartment. He says he knew something was not right.
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"I didn't hear her scream 'help,' but I was just like hearing her cry. I didn't know what happened," Garcia said.
As for what the girl's mom would say to her daughter's attacker?
"I just tell him to think about what he did. Think about it. And I just hope one day he regrets what he did to her," she said.
Her mother is pleading with anyone who knows the man to give police a call.
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