Bike attack

Stanley Williams
1964-2007

Dan P. Blake reports in The Chicago Tribune, 20 December 07, that biker dies 8 days after beating by youths on Chicago's West Side:

A 43-year-old man died Wednesday night, more than a week after a group of youngsters assaulted him on Chicago's West Side, police and his girlfriend said.

Stanley Williams, who grew up in Oak Park but had recently been taking care of his ailing grandmother on Chicago's West Side, was attacked near her home in the 1000 block of North Long Avenue on Dec. 11, authorities said. He suffered severe head trauma, apparently after being struck with a board repeatedly, and died at Mt. Sinai Hospital, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.

According to his longtime girlfriend Erica McIntosh, Williams was riding his bicycle about 4:30 p.m. that day when he was attacked by the group of up to four youngsters. A police spokesman said this morning that he did not have a description of Williams' attackers, but McIntosh said witnesses described his assailants as neighborhood teenagers.

Police said no arrests have been made.

Williams' mother, Rosetta, said her son loved riding his bike year-round despite the weather and was probably returning home from his job as a cook at local restaurant when the assailants jumped him.

"All I understand is it was a bunch of punks hanging on the corner," Rosetta Williams said. "When they struck him, it was head trauma. He went into a coma and didn't come out."

She said her son often would ride his bicycle through Cook County forest preserves to escape traffic.

A graduate of Oak Park & River Forest High School, Williams was trained as a window installer and recently worked as a contractor for the Chicago Housing Authority, McIntosh said. Together they had two daughters, ages 13 and 17.