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[UPDATE] Man Beaten At Williamsburg Bar Is Brain-Dead, His Sister Says Police Are Dragging Their Heels
By
Nathan Tempey
Published Jun 16, 2015
Modified Jun 22, 2015
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By
Nathan Tempey
Published Jun 16, 2015
Modified Jun 22, 2015
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Updates below
The sister of Michael Sapp, the man beaten into a coma at the Charleston on Bedford Avenue on Saturday night, said she is coming to terms with doctors' pronouncement that he is brain-dead, but she is aggravated that police aren't telling her anything about what happened. Ampora Yazdani flew to New York from Los Angeles on Sunday as soon as she heard from the mother of Sapp's child that he was at Bellevue Medical Center.
Sapp, 33, suffered a fractured skull and contusions to the back of his head "as if he was hit from behind," she said. He lost blood flow to his brain and doctors declared him unable to breathe on his own yesterday. Yazdani knows that the next step is to take him off life support but is holding out hope.
"I'm pursuing all of my contacts here to see if there's a neurologist who could give a second opinion," she said. "I know there's probably no chance, but I'm hoping that there might be a miracle."
Sapp was out drinking on Saturday night and police said he got into fights "inside and outside of the bar." A witness said a bouncer beat Sapp unconscious in the street at around 11:45 pm. A police spokesman said this morning that detectives still have not named a suspect, and Yazdani said that beyond confirming that several people called 911, they aren't telling her anything.
"What's making it that much more difficult is I can't get a straight answer from the cops on what happened," she said.
She stressed that, given that this was Bedford Avenue on a Saturday night, there have to be numerous witnesses and plenty of surveillance footage.
"This wasn’t in an alley," she said.
Officers at One Police Plaza have been more forthcoming with the New York Post, but what they're saying—"one man battered Sapp apparently in self-defense ... it’s unlikely the person who beat Sapp will face criminal charges"—doesn't inspire hope that there will be an arrest. The Post report falsely states that Sapp was taken off life support early on Monday.
The Charleston did not respond to an emailed requests for further elaboration on what happened. Yesterday, a woman who answered the phone at the Charleston declined to comment.
Sapp and Yazdani grew up on Long Island and their parents both died when they were kids, which makes finding the culprit feel even more urgent, Yazdani said.
"I've been his mom-sister. He's all I got left," she said. "So I just wanna do everything in my power to find out what happened to him and who's responsible."
Sapp had recently been working as a chef, but he was a "struggling artist" at heart, passionate about rapping, painting, and drawing, she said. In addition to his sister, he leaves behind a 15-year-old daughter. The crowd of supporters at the hospital, including coworkers who he only knew for a short time, is a testament to his magnetism, Yazdani said.
"Although he didn’t have it all together himself, he gave great advice, and people loved that about him," she said. "He was like a soothsayer."
He was at times "a firecracker," she said, and had been involved in bar fights in the past. But in the absence of solid information, Yazdani worried that police inaction could be a cover for the bouncer, who she fears was an off-duty cop. And, she said, nothing could justify what happened.
"No one deserves that," she said.
Update 1:55 pm:
Police now say that they received two 911 calls early on Sunday morning. Officers responding to the first, made at 12:15, found Michael Sapp conscious, according to Det. Kellyann Ort, an NYPD spokeswoman. Sapp was uncooperative and refused medical attention, she said. A second call came in at 1:05 am, and when officers arrived emergency medical workers were treating Sapp, Ort said. Ort objected to Gothamist publishing this story two and a half hours after emailing the NYPD for comment, and suggested now is not the time to be demanding a full account of what happened.
"You are aware that this is an ongoing investigation, right?" she said.
Update 3:40 pm:
Sapp's sister said that police reached out to her after the publication of this article and told her that he had been involved in several fights that night and was "the verbal antagonist."
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bar fight
bedford avenue
brain death
delayed response
Michael Sapp
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williamsburg
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