A driver who stopped his vehicle after hitting a 10-year-old received a brutal beating in Detroit’s east side Wednesday and is currently in critical condition, Detroit Free Press reports.
Officer Beasley Dorsey with the Detroit Police Department’s Public Information Office told The Daily Caller that the driver, a 54-year-old white male, and the boy who was hit, a 10-year-old black male, are both in critical condition.
Debra Hughes witnessed the attack, and told WWJ, a radio subsidiary of CBS Detroit, that the group of 30 or more was comprised mostly of teenagers. She said that the way they were beating the driver, “there was nothing else they could do to him but kill him,” so she intervened.
“Then EMS came and I kept him calm, I kept his hands down and everything so he could be comfortable,” said Hughes to WWJ. “He had the biggest gash on his head I ever seen — he was bleeding from the mouth and he was unconscious when I first got there. … Being a registered nurse, I thought I could go out and help him.”
An anonymous witness to the beating said to the Detroit Free Press that the driver “got his” and “got beat up real bad.” She said three other children were also crossing the intersection to go to the Clark gas station when the boy was hit by the truck. Many residents of the neighborhood rushed outside when they heard the boy screaming.
The group attacked the driver at around 4 p.m. after he pulled over to check on the child, according to Sgt. Michael Woody. The group checking on the boy may have joined in on the beating, Woody added.
The boy broke his leg, according to CBS Detroit. Both he and the driver are receiving treatment at St. John Hospital. The Detroit Free Press noted that the driver received “multiple, serious head injuries” from a group of young men and went to the gas station for help after the beating.
Woody said that at this time, because the driver stopped, the case is not being treated as a hit-and-run and that police are still looking for the teens involved in the assault.
“The guy never tried to flee the scene,” Woody said to the Detroit Free Press. “He got out to check on the child and was assaulted by people in the neighborhood.”
The neighborhood is densely populated, and several children were running through the street’s intersection with a gas station, pizza place and liquor store at the time of the accident.