CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Matthew Robinson, the 30-year-old Army veteran assaulted by a group of teenagers in downtown Cleveland earlier this month, said he loathes the media’s handling of the clash.

He calls the coverage “truly disgusting.”

Robinson’s altercation, first reported on Cleveland’s WOIO as the beating and robbery of a white disabled vet carried out by a mob of black “punks” and “thugs,” quickly made international headlines. The sensationalism -- and focus on race -- ballooned with each Internet regurgitation.

Robinson said he was riding the RTA Healthline the afternoon of Feb. 7 when six to eight black teenagers surrounded him. The gang then followed Robinson off the bus on Euclid Avenue near East 6th Street and eventually began taking turns tossing punches at him, Robinson said.

While Robinson did his best to protect himself, a 16-year-old girl with the group recorded the attack on a cell phone. “Kill that white boy,” she screamed, according to a police report. “Knock that white boy out. … You about to be on TV.”

Robinson said he saw adult bystanders also recording the struggle. And not one person came to his aid, he said.

“I’m still really disappointed in the citizens of Cleveland,” Robinson said. “No one stepped up to do right when a wrong was taking place.”

The assault came to an end at the first sight of police. The group fled, but two teenaged men and the 16-year-old videophile were arrested.

WOIO broke the story with the following headline: “Mob of teens attack man in downtown Cleveland.” Days later, New York Daily News used this for its rehash: “Cleveland disabled vet victim of savage beat down, teen gang calls him 'white boy’.”

But the beating wasn’t savage. In fact, Robinson -- a former combat sniper who survived three tours in Iraq during his 10 years in the Army -- said it wasn’t a beating at all.

“I didn’t sustain any injuries,” Robinson said, adding that he did get a bloody nose during the fray. “I was able to defend myself. I wasn’t on the offense. I was on the defense. These were young kids. They didn’t know what they were doing.”

“I was basically slapping their punches away,” Robinson said. “I thought to myself, ‘You kids are a joke. Is this all you’re working with?’”

Robinson said his military experience gave him “a certain skill set” he didn’t want to resort to using when confronted by the group. The war-trained veteran wouldn’t elaborate on that expertise but said he was only concerned with defending himself – not harming the teens -- during the fight.

Still, the media exaggerated the seriousness of the melee, Robinson said. He found it especially egregious when WOIO ran one of its stories with graphic images of a local teen who was seriously beaten last month in Public Square.

Then there is the issue of the robbery. Robinson lost a pair of headphones in the incident, but nothing else went missing when the gaggle scattered, he said.

The two men arrested in connection with altercation – Kenneth Matthews Jr., 18, and Ronald Reid-Williams, 19 -- are charged with robbery.

Robinson said he has the paperwork to prove he is a disabled veteran, but it would be hard to tell otherwise. The full time Tri-C student said he sprinted after one of the fleeing suspects and even helped an officer who slipped during the foot pursuit.

And when asked if he thought the assault was a hate crime?

“There was some racism -- them calling me ‘cracker,’ ‘white boy’,” Robinson said. “You have eight African Americans and one white guy, so you tell me what it is. To me its just ignorance.”