By Marie Mulvenna

Two young Turkish students were savagely beaten in Clarkesville, Ga., last weekend, but their plight could have been much worse if not for the intervention of Father Mert McMahon and Brother Curtis of St. Mark’s parish and two of their friends.

Father McMahon, a Glenmary priest, related the story of the beating and explained that the two young men involved were Georgia State University students: Aziz Naci Sahin, 19, and Murat Mehmet Yucel, 20, both from Turkey. The students were traveling via motorcycle to Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, NC, where they were to visit friends.

Father McMahon said the youths had stopped at a station on U.S. 411, north of Clarksville, because they thought the front brakes of the cycle were too hot. They entered the service station and asked for a cup of coffee and were immediately informed there was no coffee available. Leaving the interior of the station they found the tire slashed on their motorcycle and some “roughnecks” hanging around the cycle.

At that point, Father McMahon relates, the operator from inside the service station emerged with a pool cue and proceeded to beat the boys, shouting obscenities at them, and telling them they “should go back to Puerto Rico.”

Sahin later referred to the incident as a reminder of the movie “Easy Rider.” The two students then rolled their bike down the road and were followed in a pick-up truck by three of the attackers. One man allegedly pulled a knife to their throats and the others continued to mention a gun, although neither youth said they actually saw one.

The gang then took the tire of the motorcycle, which the youths had removed to try to repair, and rolled it into a ditch. They then proceeded to beat and knife the two students.

One of the pair escaped the attackers and made his way to the highway where he tried to flag down a passing car. One motorist passed the bleeding student but the second car stopped. In it were Tom and Pat Davis of Gainesville, friends of Father McMahon, who officiated at their wedding. Obviously alarmed at the sight of the young man’s wounds and his frantic efforts to relate the plight of his friend, who was still at the mercy of the attackers, they took the youth to a nearby service station to call the police.

Fearing additional assaults by the gang, the Davises stayed with the student until the police arrived. The second student had managed to flee his attackers and found refuge in a farmhouse where he remained until the police came and warrants were issued.

The Davises then called St. Mark’s rectory, reaching Brother Curtis, a Glenmary brother assigned to the parish, and Brother Curtis went to the scene of the incident and brought the wounded boys to the rectory. Father McMahon said they tried to feed the boys but their injuries were too severe to allow them to drink or eat.

“I then called a doctor I know, Dr. T.N. Lumsden, and told them how the boys had been beaten. They definitely required stitches and had been kicked and cut about the lips and mouth,” Father said, noting it was 11 p.m. by this time.

After treatment by Dr. Lumsden, the boys returned to the rectory where they stayed a short time before resuming their trip to North Carolina.

Father McMahon said he was so angered by the incident he immediately called The Atlanta Constitution because “more than likely the local paper here would not mention it at all.”

Tom Davis apparently felt the same and called his father, an attorney, who then contacted the sheriff’s office. The sheriff said he found it hard to believe that the two youths had not provoked the incident but, confronted with the evidence at the scene, warrants were issued for two of the attackers who were released later that evening on $1,000 bond. The third man had not been identified.

In a telephone interview with the Constitution, Sahin said of the affair, “I guess it was just some kind of prejudice.”

Dr. Lumsden was quoted as saying: “A lot of people up here are pretty disgusted something like this could happen here.” Father McMahon said he was appalled at the incident and the unwarranted attack on the students.

“I didn’t really do anything,” he says, adding quietly that the two students called him at 1 p.m. Saturday afternoon to let him know they had arrived safely in North Carolina. Trial date is set for June.