I once knew a similar person. We'll call him 'dick'. No, dick's taken, isn't it. Then we shall call him potato, for the shape of his head.
Potato was a dick. He verbally abused me for any reason that popped into his head at the time. Short jokes, jokes about my mild social awkwardness, random yet entirely unprovoked insults (seriously, I never talked to the guy except when he was hurling insults at me).
Evidently this got boring, so he persuaded other people to insult me too. Then decided it would be more fun to just trip me in passing, or randomly punch me, or create a long-running game based on how long it took to put me in a bin. My 'friends' at the time decided to simply stay out of the way. I'm a little bitter towards anyone from school as a result of all this.
Eventually I snapped and tried to hit him back, resulting in me solidly getting my ass kicked by him and his friends. It seems that me having the nerve to stick up for myself made him very, very angry. And then they put me in the bin again.
This, for the record, was in years 12-13 (16-18 years old) - you'd think people might be a little more mature by then.
Nearly 3 years later, and I haven't seen potato for a while. But someone keeps ringing my doorbell at 2 in the morning and running away, and the laugh is very familiar.
Thing is, I know the guy is, deep down, an insecure mess. Apparently taking it out on me made him feel big or something? All I know is I've just recovered from a major depression that was at least partially due to him. Twat. Possibly the only human being I've ever actually hated.
[/self-serving rant]
So yeah, sometimes violence can solve problems. And sometimes it leads to you lying on the floor hoping that soon they'll stop kicking you, or that someone else will notice.