SEATTLE — A man has been charged with first-degree attempted murder after a brutal, unprovoked hammer attack in downtown Seattle.
The attack happened on May 4.
Seattle police spent months looking for the person responsible. The suspect, Bey Muhammud, is also accused of attacking two other people since the alleged May attack.
“It’s horrific to know that this person was walking around Seattle, severely injuring innocent strangers,” said Lisa Driscoll, whose son was attacked.
George Miller, Driscoll’s son, is one of Muhammud’s alleged victims. According to police, her son was slumped outside the Renaissance Hotel when Muhammud hit him in the head with a hammer.
Investigators said Miller was struck about 30 times, with one police officer describing it as the most severe head and face injuries he had seen in his whole career.
“Left him in a pool of blood and walked down the street,” Driscoll said.
Miller spent weeks in a coma, fighting for his life. He is now staying in an assisted living facility. Driscoll does not know what long-term recovery looks like.
“He can’t hear out of one ear. He still has facial fractures all over his head,” she said. “He has vision problems in one eye. He can’t talk very well. He has a feeding tube in his stomach.”
All Driscoll could do was try to help her son heal and hope the man responsible was caught before he did the same thing to someone else.
According to prosecutors, what she feared is exactly what happened.
Muhammud was arrested in July after allegedly stabbing two other people in random, unprovoked attacks in downtown Seattle.
Prosecutors said he was connected to the hammer attack by his unique clothing and surveillance footage of him trying to use the same hammer to break into his neighbor’s house.
Muhammud’s stabbing case, in which he faces two assault charges, was in court Thursday. He did not attend the hearing. A judge ruled he should undergo 90 days of competency restoration.
Driscoll was in court, hoping to see her son’s accused attacker for herself. It’s been a long, frustrating process, but she said she was just glad that he’s off the streets.
“I want to know that he’s going to stay off the street and not be able to hurt anyone else or destroy anyone else’s family,” she said.
Driscoll’s son was living on the streets in active addiction at the time of the attacks. She is hopeful that he will soon be able to move into a recovery housing facility she founded in his honor years ago.
Muhammud is set to be arraigned for the hammer attack next Wednesday.