A man who suffered a blow to the head from a baseball bat on a downtown Minneapolis sidewalk in mid-September and died is a homicide victim whose attacker remains on the loose, authorities said Monday.
Michael M. Williams, 53, of Minneapolis, suffered the head injury on Sept. 13 while at E. Grant Street and 1st Avenue S., near the Loring Towers apartment complex, according to the Hennepin County medical examiner's office.
Williams, who lived in the 5700 block of Nicollet Avenue S., died 10 days later at Hennepin County Medical Center, the examiner's office added.
Police have disclosed little about Williams' death. A police report filed soon after the assault noted that Williams was hit with a bat and "was too intoxicated to tell officers what had happened" when they visited him in the hospital.
"He never saw the bat coming," said Deloris Williams, who visited her brother in the hospital regularly in the days before he died.
Deloris Williams said that Michael, who was unemployed because of a disability, was waiting for his brother to get off the bus late in the afternoon when the attack occurred.
By the time the brother got off the bus near his home after working that day, the ambulance had taken Michael Williams away and people there told him what happened, the sister said.
She said police have not told her much about the assault. The sister said Michael Williams was not sure if what he knew of the attack was from what little he remembered or from what police and others told him.
