In early April, two people allegedly severely beat a man in the Marine Parking Garage in downtown Juneau. He was medevaced out of town. Nearly a month later, Alfred Torres Sr. was pronounced brain dead and taken off of life support on Monday.
Torres’s family is reeling from the loss. His daughter, Laurie Lott, said they last spoke in person when he was hospitalized in Juneau, right after the beating.
“On April 6, I received a call from my dad that he was beat up really bad, and that he was going to be medevaced to Anchorage,” she said. “And when I got to the hospital, he looked really bad, but he was able to talk.”
Lott recalled Torres asking if his grandkids were doing okay.
From Juneau, he was medevaced to Anchorage, then to Seattle. While in surgery there, he suffered a stroke. The doctors told Lott they believed it was unsurvivable. Lott and her siblings quickly made arrangements to fly out to see him.
“We spent some time in the hospital at his bedside, hoping for a miracle, hoping that what they said was wrong, that he was going to wake up and come back,” she said.
But over the next few days, tests confirmed: Torres, at 53 years old, was brain dead.
He was taken off of life support and his organs were donated.
“They were able to use his kidneys and his liver to help save some lives, which speaks to the person that he was,” Lott said. “He was a hero to everyone. He was an amazing person, and everybody loved him.”
Chelsea Willis, Torres’s niece, and Devon Rivera were arrested for the assault. Rivera faces three counts of felony assault. He’s being held at Lemon Creek Correctional Center with a $2,500 bail and faces up to 10 years in prison.
Willis faces one misdemeanor charge of assault and one felony charge of tampering with evidence. She could see up to two years in prison.
Charging documents say Willis claims “they were acting in self-defense in relation to an alleged incident that occurred years prior.”
A press release by the Alaska Department of Law says the state is evaluating whether to press further charges now that Torres has died from his injuries, but none had been filed as of Friday morning.
Lott said she believes the alleged attackers are a danger to the community.
“If they can do this, I believe they can do it again,” she said.
Torres had lived in Juneau most of his life. He had three kids and seven grandkids.
“He helped us a lot with our kids,” Lott said. “Just recently, he took them to the park, took them to watch the Gold Medal basketball game while we were at work.”
And Torres was famous in the community for something else: playing pool.
“Pool is his life,” Lott said. “He’s been doing it since he was really young. He’s won many awards, gone to Vegas plenty of times throughout his life. I remember him going to Vegas every year, when he would play in his tournaments and stuff.”
Lott’s eleven-year-old son has taken up the family legacy.
“Just recently my son started wanting to play pool with him,” she said. “He’d go with him to the teen center to play with him.”
Torres’s family held a candlelit vigil Thursday night outside of the parking garage where Torres was beaten. More than 100 people came to support the family.
A memorial service for Torres will be held on Friday, May 22 at Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
The next hearing for both Willis and Rivera is June 3 at the Dimond Courthouse in Juneau.
