"Tuba Man" Ed McMichael
While everyone is ooh'ing and aah'ing over President-elect Obama's little girls getting a puppy, and tut-tutting about Sarah Palin spending too much money on clothes, it seems like a lot of people have forgotten that we still live in a world that's going to hell in a hand basket, and it's our youth that are carrying it there...
SEATTLE -- A third suspect has been arrested in the beating death of a local icon.
Seattle police say they arrested at 15-year-old boy on Wednesday for investigation of the murder of 53-year-old Ed McMichael, aka "The Tuba Man". The boy was booked into the Youth Services Center for Investigation of Homicide.
McMichael was walking home near a bus stop on Seattle's Mercer Street on Oct. 25 when five teens attacked him. Police said the five kicked and beat him and tried to rob him.
A police officer drove up to the scene and saw McMichael in the fetal position trying to protect himself. The officer was able to capture two of the alleged attackers, but three others got away.
McMichael was treated at Harborview Medical Center and sent home. He was recovering at the Vermont Inn where he lived when he died Monday.
The Tuba Man's throaty notes were unmistakable presence in the city.
Since the early 1990s, McMichael had been a fixture outside Seattle sporting events and Seattle Opera performances, wearing funny hats and playing songs on his tuba he called "his baby."
His brother, Kelsey McMichael, never expected the beloved to musician to become a city icon.
"But for some reason the city picked on Ed as their symbol," he said.
After the Tuba Man was beaten, Kelsey, who lives in Florida, came to Seattle to help him recover. Kelsey said Ed was simply not the same after the attack.
"He was definitely traumatized. The first thing he said to me when I knocked on his door was, 'I can't leave this room,'" he said.
Kelsey can't understand how five teens could be so cruel to such a kind man.
"I asked the medical examiner what was the cause of death. And he simply said it was trauma as a result of the attack," he said.
As police look for the two remaining suspects in the attack, Seattle is looking for something to heal its heart.
"He was just the kind of person you'd warm up to real easily -- just a big heart," said friend Ronny Chesvick. "We're just crushed."
1 comment:
This is just so sad. To think that so much of the world's violence comes at the hands of young men of all colors, religions, and nationalities.
Couldn't they just go hunt a mastadon or something?
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