Tower Bar Beat-Down

Nearly two weeks after being attacked by a group of men loitering near the Tower Bar at around 1:50 a.m., the victim who sustained the worst injuries said he’s recovering, and the suspect accused of stomping on his head while he was unconscious is behind bars. (Because of the nature of the attack, the victim asked not to be identified.)

According to police reports, five to six black men wearing dark clothing went to the City Heights bar after last call but left once the bartender refused to serve them after hours. As the patrons began clearing out, the suspects reportedly attacked several customers, sending three to the hospital with head injuries and a few others with bruises and black eyes.

“I had a displaced fracture of the left orbital lobe, which means my left eye socket was cracked, so they had to do surgery,” the victim says. “The doctor pieced the bone together with a protein adhesive patch to hold it in place. That’s an implant that will stay in my face forever. The surgery went well. They did it all through the eye socket so I won’t have any scars.”

The victim said he has no recollection of the incident.

“Honestly, I don’t have the slightest memory of it,” he says. “I don’t remember being hit, being in the ambulance, being in the hospital. From what everyone has been saying about it, there was nothing that led up to it. It caught everyone off guard.”

In a follow-up interview, the victim said the police investigator told him officers arrested the suspect shortly after the attack. “He had to be tazed because he ran from the cops when they went to stop him,” he says. Investigators then linked the suspect to the crime by his shoeprint.

“I had a very distinguishable shoe pattern on my face for a few days, and [the suspect] was wearing the same shoes — the pattern of the shoes matched the pattern on my face.”

Reports identified the suspect as Johnny W. Douglas, 26. He’s being held at the George Bailey Detention Center with bail set at $35,000. He is charged with assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury on a person and resisting an officer.