63-year-old veteran attacked on NE side

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - A Grand Rapids man suffered a broken jaw, fractured vertebrae and eye socket after being beaten violently in the street.

The attack happened early Thursday morning just after 1 a.m. 63-year-old Frank Northouse had just walked to his home on the northeast side of town from a local bar and was sitting on his front porch.

"Some kids came up and he started to run and then he tripped and fell, then they just started to pummel," his sister Alyce Burns said.  

A few neighbors who heard the chaos on Curtis Street near North Avenue called 911.

"I seen a group of teenagers. I know there was two girls with them because I heard them giggling and laughing," witness Richard Garza said. "They were all surrounding him, kicking him in the stomach, in the back and in the head. Just kicking him and kicking him."

Garza didn't get a good look at the attackers, but thinks there were about six or seven of them.

Northouse also sustained brain damage and and is experiencing memory loss.

"He must have a severe concussion at this point because he doesn't know how old he is or what month it is," Burns said.

Burns doesn't know how long Northouse's recovery will take or where he'll go after he gets out of the hospital.

She has been driving back and forth from her home in Greenville to the hospital in Grand Rapids to help take care of the former Army soldier.

"I didn't even know if he was alive or dead because there were rumors that he had died," she said. "I called my funeral home director and I said, 'They wont let me in but maybe you can claim the body.'"

"He's all I have left, our parents are gone, our brothers gone. It's just him and I, there's nobody else," she added. "So yeah, I'm very frustrated. Very."

Police are having a difficult time finding the attackers because they didn't get a good description from witnesses, they told 24 Hour News 8 and Northouse can't remember what happened.

Anyone with information to is asked to contact Silent Observer at 616.774.2345.