Minneapolis police are trying to determine whether an assault case warrants other charges after an Uptown bar and restaurant employee died last week, nearly a week after being injured while helping a coworker with an unruly customer.
Max Henson, 23, died March 29 at Hennepin County Medical Center, six days after the confrontation at Drink, police Sgt. William Palmer said Tuesday.
Minneapolis residents Jason A. Sunby, 25, and Nicholas R. Anderson, 24, each were cited for misdemeanor fifth-degree assault after an altercation that allegedly began between them and a coworker of Henson's, Palmer said. Both were jailed and later released.
Palmer said Henson was trying to direct Anderson out of the bar. The death "is being looked at by our homicide team" and investigators will forward a case to the county attorney's office for consideration of other charges, Palmer said.
The county medical examiner's office has yet to rule on a cause and manner of Henson's death. An obituary on the Benson & Langehough Funeral Home website said he died from "a traumatic brain injury while protecting a co-worker with an unruly patron."
Reached by telephone Tuesday, Anderson said he had no comment. A working telephone number for Sunby could not be found, but the Star Tribune did receive an email reply to a message left on Sunby's Facebook page.
"I am Jason Sunby," reads the reply. "My thoughts and prayers are with the family of Mr. Henson. I can't say how horrified and scared I am ..... I can't express how awful I feel that someone's life was lost over this."
According to his obituary, Henson was born in Minneapolis in 1987. He and his family moved to Northfield in 1999, and he graduated from Northfield High School in 2008. He returned to the Twin Cities to attend Minneapolis Community and Technical College, where he was studying economics and photography.
