(Steven Hirsch)
KNOCKOUT: Austin Dewan is out cold on Greenwich Street after allegedly race-baiting Douglas Reddish (inset, yesterday), who allegedly retaliated.
A black man tried to help a drunk white guy who stumbled into his table at a West Village restaurant — but wound up knocking him out cold for shouting a racist slur, cops said.
Douglas Reddish, 25, was eating with his girlfriend at Benny’s Burritos on Greenwich Avenue on Friday at 5:50 p.m. when a soused Austin Dewan, 31, knocked into their outdoor table.
Reddish helped steady Dewan while waiters rushed over to shoo away the drunk man.
“This n—-r wants to fight me,” the belligerent Dewan roared, cops said.
That’s when Reddish clocked him with such force that Dewan fell backward and landed on the sidewalk — with his head cracking against the concrete curb, cops said.
He was bleeding heavily.
“He was out cold. I thought he was dead,” said Benny’s worker Robert Garcia.
Reddish went in for another blow, but was held back by employees, cops said.
When Reddish saw the blood oozing, he fled the scene, leaving his girlfriend behind, police said.
Police arrested him blocks away and charged him with misdemeanor assault, which carries up to a year in prison.
Reddish was arraigned at Manhattan Criminal Court last night and released without bail.
Before arriving at the burrito place, Dewan threw back $40 in beers at the Village Den on West 12th Street, a manager said. He already appeared tipsy when he walked in, he said.
He crossed the street to Equinox Gym, where a TV commercial was being filmed, and tried to sit on women’s laps, witnesses said.
He staggered to Johnny’s Bar on Greenwich Avenue and fell into the arms of a woman smoking out front, she told The Post.
He launched into a weepy diatribe about his wife leaving him and about his “job at Goldman Sachs,” she said.
He wanted to call a buddy on his cellphone, she said, but couldn’t manage to dial the number and she did it for him.
“Could you tell me things about myself that make me feel better?” he asked his new friend, she recalled.
“I felt so bad,” she said. “He could hardly walk.”
Reddish was in stable condition yesterday at Beth Israel Hospital.
Goldman Sachs said that Dewan had never been employed at its company.