Main St. attackers sought
Mount Pleasant Police are still searching for the suspects of a possibly race-motivated crime that left an 18-year-old Sanford man fighting for his life.
Jacob Showalter was beaten unconscious and had his head stomped on after leaving a Sigma Chi social fraternity party during the early morning of Sept. 7, witnesses say.
According to a Mount Pleasant Police Department report, city officers were called to the 600 block of South Main Street at 1:59 a.m. where they found Showalter laying on the ground bleeding.
Chuck Morrison, Mount Pleasant Police Department public relations officer, said no one has been arrested and there is still an open investigation for aggravated assault.
“We are tracking down the main suspect,” he said. “The police are continuing interviews with potential witnesses to complete the investigations, to talk to the suspect.”
Morrison said in his three years working in Mount Pleasant and 10 total years of police work, crimes involving race are rare.
“This is very serious in nature,” he said. “It’s not like a little bar brawl. I can’t really recall anything like this.”
Showalter was visiting CMU for a fun night on the town when the assault occurred, said his mother, Janet Showalter.
Janet Showalter was told the assailants opened her son’s mouth, put it on the curb and stomped the back of his head five or six times.
Sigma Chi president Martin Markaj, Clinton Township junior, was not at the scene, but denied the fraternity’s involvement or knowing anyone else involved.
“It pretty much has nothing to do with us,” he said. “I just know some guy got his ass beat and that’s all I know.”
Four female students who were walking by said they witnessed the assault.
Kasha Gage, Crystal junior, said Jacob Showalter was tackled to the ground by a black male, after Showalter allegedly uttered a racial slur.
The man sat on top of Jacob Showalter and punched him in the face repeatedly, while a white male kicked him in the ribs before stomping on his face several times, she said.
Jacob Showalter said he was just having a good time with a few friends when they entered the Sigma Chi house and does not remember saying any racial slurs.
“We went outside and people started saying stuff to us,” he said. “We started walking down the road and a pack of kids started following us and saying stuff and I don’t really remember what happened after that. I just remember the letters EX.”
According to the police report, witnesses say Sigma Chi member Bill Staugaard, Rochester Hills junior, was present and may possibly have information on the suspect and his whereabouts, as well as the white male subject who stomped Jacob Showalter’s head.
Staugaard told CM Life he was not involved in the assault and was only trying to break it up. Some of his friends were there visiting from back home, he said.
Janet Showalter said she received a phone call from Mount Pleasant Community Hospital the night of the assault and was informed that her son’s jaw had to be wired shut.
The following day, he was taken to the University of Michigan Hospital, where he went through four and a half hours of reconstructive surgery during which doctors inserted three metal plates into his jaw.
Janet Showalter said the assailants completely shattered her son’s entire left jaw bone and chin. He is now on a clear liquid diet and unable to eat solid foods.
“He has to go back down for surgery to have a bone put back in to have teeth,” Janet Showalter said. “We’re talking about a kid who never had a filling in his life.”
He also has a soft spot on the top of his head now about twice the size of a 50-cent piece, Janet Showalter said.
“You can stick your fingers in it, it’s so mushy,” she said. “His ear was almost ripped off. It was all black and blue on the left side. They really did a number on him. The doctors said two more kicks and he would have been dead.”
Janet Showalter said she is upset that nobody seems to know who assaulted her son and no one is being held responsible.
“I can’t get through to the cops,” she said. “I want to know if they picked these kids up.”
Mount Pleasant Police Officer Dale Hawks was one of the officers on duty the night of the assault. Gage said she and her friends gave statements to Hawks twice that night, but have not been contacted since.
“You’d think something would be done,” she said.
Jacob Showalter was accompanied by friends Scott Eastman, Justin Burton and Chris Hermans.
Burton, 22, said he and his cousin left to go to another party and found the fight in progress when they returned and tried to break it up.
He said there were about six or seven male subjects fighting Jacob Showalter, Eastman and himself.
Burton said when he turned around to look, Jacob Showalter was on the ground.
Gage said it was then that she used her cell phone to call 9-1-1.
“It just happened so fast. You could hear his bones crack and his head being smashed into the cement,” she said. “He was in a mangled position. It was pretty much ‘American History X.’ We thought he was going to die.”
Juniors Kristin Wrench and Lisa Lamphere kept Jacob Showalter’s pulse until an ambulance arrived, Gage said.
She said Wrench tried to intervene between Jacob Showalter and the assailants earlier, but was pushed away.
“I don’t want to make it seem like it was all Sigma Chi’s fault,” she said. “We don’t know for sure who did it.”
Jacob Showalter said he would like to see justice served so his injuries can be paid for.
“I got a $15,000 hospital bill and that’s just the beginning,” he said. “It’s going to cost 10 grand to get four teeth, then I have to have surgery again. I don’t know how much that’s going to cost.”
Director of Student Life Tony Voisin said he had not heard about the assault, but university code of conduct has a clause that deals with threat and endangerment.
If a student is found in violation of that code, he said, implications could vary anywhere from written reprimand to dismissal from CMU.
Janet Showalter said she wants something done soon.
“This stuff shouldn’t be happening,” she said. “What scares me most is what if they do it to someone else and they kill him? I think these parties are just a little out of control lately. They messed him up bad and they just left him there to die.”
