Is machete attack on homeless facility employee linked to previous brutal assault?

Cedric Courtes Smith

By Joe Johnson

Christopher Sullens is lying in an ICU hospital bed as the result of a savage attack by a homeless man armed with a machete four days ago.

The incident occurred just several weeks after a homeless man was disfigured in a similarly brutal attack at another east Athens location not far away.

The Athens-Clarke County Police Department refused to say whether they believed that the incidents were related.

The more recent attack happened late Thursday afternoon, when 33-year-old Cedric Courtes Smith

used a machete to attack Sullens at the Day The Service Center, a facility for homeless people that is operated on North Avenue by Advantage Behavioral Health Systems.

Sullens suffered extensive damage to his skull, large lacerations on his head and face, and swelling of the brain and he wound up in the intensive care unit at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta.

His sister, Teresa Sullens-Baker, said that he has since been removed from a ventilator, and will be having surgery to remove an eye.

The 53-year-old victim was so savagely beaten that part of his skull was lodged in the brain, which was “bulging through the openings in the fractures,” Sullens-Baker said.

The woman credited the quick actions of coworkers who witnessed the attack and intervened with saving her brother’s life.

The drama had played out within walking distance of a similarly vicious attack that occurred several weeks ago, on the morning May 27.

Oscar Lee Brock told police that he was sleeping in the North Oconee River Greenway, near North Avenue and Willow Street, when he was violently awakened by a man who repeatedly stabbed him about the head and face while saying that he was “owed a vendetta.”

The homeless victim didn’t know his attacker, who he described only as a “dark” male wearing dark clothing who “looked like he was depressed,” police said.

While looking for help, Brock found a police officer nearby. The officer noted in a report that Brock was bleeding profusely from a stab wound near his eye and that his “whole body was covered in blood.” The victim’s forehead was “missing a large chunk of skin,” with another stab wound on top of his head, according to the officer’s report.

The man never described the weapon his attacker used, but it was noted in the report that when telling about the incident Brock “was having a hard time providing more details due to the state of shock that he was in.”

Meanwhile, and in the immediate aftermath of the assault on Sullens, Classic City News learned that Smith had a history of arrests for crimes in which he had threatened or injured victims with sharp objects.

The first such incident occurred a decade ago, when Smith accosted a pair of women with a knife.

According to court records, the victims were walking along Gaines School Road on the evening of Aug. 6, 2013, when Smith approached them while holding a knife in one raised hand and making a “stop” gesture with the other hand.

The victims ran across the road calling for help. and Smith was quickly arrested near Cedar Shoals Drive.

One of the victims reportedly told police that “she was so scared she almost wet herself.”

Smith was arrested and later indicted on two counts of aggravated assault.

He plea-bargained the case down to simple assault with a sentence of 24 months on probation and a recommendation that he receive mental health treatment.

In April 2017 Smith was arrested on felony criminal damage charges for using a sharp instrument to flatten the tires of vehicles in west Athens, including at the Salvation Army homeless shelter on Hawthorne Avenue.

The charges were later dismissed after prosecutors were unable to locate witnesses, court records show.

Four months later, in August 2017, Smith attacked a University of Georgia student on the sidewalk on Mark Twain Circle.

Cedric Smith after being arrested for a 2017 aggravated assault

According to records, the student told police that Smith walked toward him with his hands behind his back, began to talk, and without provocation attacked him with a razor blade.

A police report indicated that the student suffered a large, deep cut on the side of his neck and was transported to the hospital for treatment.

Smith was arrested for aggravated assault soon afterward on Barnett Shoals Road.

In an agreement with the district attorney’s office, Smith pleaded guilty in return for a sentence of 20 years, with the first seven to be served in confinement and the balance on probation.

He was paroled in February 2023, after having served less than five years in prison.