'Haunting': Good Samaritans Beat By Group Of Laughing Men
DENVER (CBS4) - Denver police are trying to find three men who attacked a man downtown then brutally beat a couple trying to stop the assault.
"The last thing I really remember is the three of them grabbing me and ramming my head directly into the brick wall," Cody Schuyler, one of the victims, said.
Schuyler and his fiancée, Jacquie Jo Billings, were walking to their car around 2 a.m. Saturday morning near Broadway and 11th Avenue. They came across three men attacking another man outside the 11th Avenue Hotel and Hostel when the victim was shoved in their direction.
"We sort of yelled, 'Whoa!' and 'Hey, what are you doing?'" Schuyler said.
That's when, Schuyler said, the attackers turned their attention to him and Jacquie Jo for no apparent reason. Schuyler was violently shoved into a brick wall and knocked unconscious.
"While I was out, they had grabbed Jacquie Jo and one of them held her while another one punched her in the face and broke her nose," he said.
Jacquie Jo described her recollection of being on the ground and trying to stand up.
"There was just blood everywhere and I didn't know where it was coming from," she told CBS4's Kelly Werthmann. "I looked over at [Cody] and we were both very, very emotional."
Trying to get the attackers to stop, Jacqui Jo kept screaming, but the three men kept kicking her fiancé repeatedly.
"They were laughing and that's what was so disturbing and haunting," Jacquie Jo said.
Their memory is blurred by the attack, but they've been told it was a night security guard at the hotel who scared off the attackers.
"He saved our lives," Jacqui Jo said.
The couple was eventually taken to Denver Health by ambulance where they were treated for their injuries and released. Schuyler suffered a large laceration to his head and required eight stitches, as well as numerous scrapes and bruises and fractured ribs. Jacquie Jo's nose was broken in the attack. She also has some facial fractures and chipped teeth.
Both said they are now afraid to go downtown because their attackers are still out there.
"I want to know if they have mothers, sisters, or they have friends or brothers and would they ever want something like that done to their family or friends," Jacqui Jo said. "I've been thinking about, what are they doing right now? Just sitting around with each other like happy that they did this to three innocent people?"
The three men did not take any of the couple's belongings that were scattered across the sidewalk during the attack. Schuyler believes the men violently attack people for fun and is worried they'll do it again.
"I don't want other people to live their life in fear, but I want them to be aware," he said.
Due to their traumatic attack, the couple do not have very detailed descriptions of their attackers. They said two of them were white men, the other was black. All of them were in their early to mid-20s.
"Honestly, they looked like DU Business students," Schuyler said. "They were all about 6 feet tall or so and clean cut."
As for the first man the suspects attacked, the couple learned from detectives he is "alive, but not doing well." He speaks Portuguese, Schuyler added, and investigators are trying to work with the language barrier.
Additional Information From The Denver Police Department
Remain anonymous and earn up to $2,000. Call Crime Stoppers at (720) 913-STOP (7867). Text to CRIMES (274637) then title DMCS and enter the message, or send an e-mail to metro-denvercrimestoppers.com; or use the Metro Denver Crime Stoppers mobile app which is immediately available as a free download on smartphones.
Kelly Werthmann joined the CBS4 team in 2012 as the morning reporter, covering national stories like the Aurora Theater Shooting and devastating Colorado wildfires. She now anchors CBS4 Weekend Morning News and reports during the week. Connect with her on Facebook or Twitter @KellyCBS4.
