The 23-year-old who Seattle Police says is responsible for the violent Labor Day weekend beating in Cal Anderson that sent a man to the hospital and helped spark more concerns about safety in the park has been charged with second degree assault in the attack.
Josua Hicks, described in the charging document as unemployed transient, will enter his plea on the assault charges later this month.
The beating apparently stemmed from a fight over Hicks’ female traveling companion. Police say the argument quickly turned violent as Hicks knocked the other man out and then punched him nearly 20 times before kneeing and stomping on the victim’s head multiple times.
According to the document, the victim suffered a severe beating but his skull was not fractured as was feared initially by emergency crews that responded to the scene. Doctors said the victim suffered a severe concussion and was treated for brain bleeding. SPD met with the victim and his Boise, Idaho-area parents at Harborview a few days after the incident and learned that the victim was close to being released from the hospital.
Hicks, who provided police a Traverse City, Michigan address, said he had been in Washington state for about five days visiting with friends before the incident in Cal Anderson. He has previous convictions for failing to report an accident and a marijuana charge. He remains in jail on $10,000 bail.
If convicted, Hicks would face around 9 months in jail.
The beating has helped to propel the situation in Cal Anderson into the citywide media spotlight. Pushed by a Capitol Hill woman’s campaign, the city announced an increased safety emphasis for the park including more SPD patrols of the public space. Laura Stockwell continues to say more needs to be done and has posted a “Make Seattle Parks Safe” petition to gather signatures prior to Mayor Mike McGinn’s appearance at a town hall community meeting on Capitol Hill on September 13th. You can listen to Stockwell talk about the effort in this radio interview from earlier this week.
Nine months is not nearly enough jail time for what he did to his victim. I don’t know the medical status of the injured guy, but with this kind of vicious head-stomping he could easily have sustained a permanent brain injury and long-term disabilty.
Agree if the facts here are correct. It seems like head-stomping would be enough to make it first degree…and just nine months?
While I agree it was a horrible crime, prison doesnt help. This kid could care less if he’s going to prison for 9 months or 9 years. He’s already part of a system that will be systematically violent and unjust to him too, and everyone he knows, for his entire life, because of poverty.
You’re getting all pissed at the symptom.
Yes, what we should do is take this guy and teach how to care for baby birds. He could nestle them in his hands and just get a sense of their delicateness and beauty, how helpless they are, how much they depend on others as they snap their beaks up in blind expectation of their mother’s feeding-kiss and flutter their wings, smaller than his pinkie. In the evening, we should read from Shakespeare and Milton to him and ask him questions like “Why do you think Iago is evil?” or “have you ever felt disenfranchised in the manner of Milton’s Satan?” Once in awhile we’d have some fun, after getting a little tipsy on Pinot, and act out a scene — I’m sure he’d make a tragic Caliban.
Anyhow — reforming the system is all well and good…and I agree with you that’s it’s OBVIOUSLY systemic and poverty/education has everything to do with it. But the discussion here is about the sentencing of an individual case, and for the time being maybe this guy just needs to be off the streets and not causing other people’s brains to hemorrhage so much?
So people who grew up in poverty get a free pass on violent behavior?
Sorry. “Victim” or not, he can get right the fuck behind bars and stay there. Thanks.
It’s nice to be sympathetic, but there’s no excuse for nearly killing someone because he made a pass at your girl. This guy isn’t safe to be walking around in public.
raise your hands if you like seeing the homeless kids all over the city.
let’s see those bleeding hearts.
oh wait, i got it. let’s help them. its our fault anyway, right?
these kids are lazy, arrogant, dirty, and truly a waste of space.
too bad we don’t build walls like china. they would be perfect labor.
I use Cal Anderson Park multiple times a day to walk my dog, at all hours. I’ve been doing this for the last 2 years or more and while there’s always been a transient population it’s never been so… massive. It seems there is an older population that congregates for food at the church on 11th and sleep in the park and then there are the crusty kids with dogs dragging their ropes behind them. I think a public park should be a safe haven for transients, homeless people and everyone else. But I can’t help notice the crusty kid population seems to be getting out of control. It’s probably just a few individuals I notice but from the looks of it, something is seriously wrong with them. I watched one guy beat on his dog and do something that looked like burn the dog with his cigarette, before I made my way over and the kids took off. Stupidly I didn’t call the cops because I wasn’t convinced the burning had happened. The beating certainly did and I won’t hesitate next time.
pdb, that is just about the most asinine comment I have ever read on this blog. Sorry, “the devil made me do it” is not an acceptable defense.
If as you say poverty is the cause of crime, then why is there not a 100% incidence of crime among poor people?
@Adddd: Outstanding work. I’m absolutely saving this for future reference and recycling.