Police have arrested a suspect in the assault of a well-known weatherman in Mobile.

Last week, 81-year-old John Edd Thompson, the retired longtime chief meteorologist for WALA in Mobile, was pumping gas at the Murphy Gas Station on University Boulevard when he was approached by a man asking for money.

When Thompson told the man he didn’t carry cash, the man cursed at him and called him a liar before physically assaulting him, he said.

“I started to get into the right side of the car,” Thompson told WALA. He said the man grabbed him “and started punching me in the face.”

Thompson said the man then threw him down and “got in his car and acted like he was gonna run me over.” The attacker fled when bystanders indicated they were calling 911. The attacker then fled the scene.

On Friday, Mobile police announced 33-year-old Nilson Ridley Cain had been taken into custody and charged with elder abuse and neglect. He remained in the Mobile Metro Jail as of Friday morning with bail set at $7,500.

Cain has previous arrests for criminal mischief, resisting arrest, assault, harassing communications, burglary and theft of property, records show.