COOK COUNTY CRIMINAL COURTHOUSE — Two men have been charged with the brutal beating of a Rogers Park bartender in June.
Anthony Rudon, 50, and Tremaine Gallimore, 21, both of the 7600 block of North Sheridan Road, are charged with attempted murder and aggravated battery in the beating of Michael Davis.
"I hope they go to jail for a long time," said Davis, who has been recovering at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, where he took his first steps since the attack. "Crime does not pay. They thought they weren’t going to get caught."
Prosecutors on Tuesday said Rudon and Gallimore went to the Poitin Stil, 1502 W. Jarvis St., on June 17 and wanted to play pool.
"They were told they could play the winners," Cook County Assistant State's Attorney Erin Antonietti said.
The two men started "causing problems" and bothering customers, she said.
Davis, 44, who occasionally tended bar at the pub, was hanging out there with friends at the time and helped escort the two men out of the bar, Antonietti said.
The two men left, only to return to the area later armed with a baseball bat and a metal pipe, Antonietti said.
They waited for Davis to leave and then attacked him, hitting him multiple times in his face and head.
"I remember three steps away from my house this guy comes out the bushes with a bat, and talked to me, like, he said a few words — and got to swinging'," Davis told DNAinfo.com Chicago earlier this month. "And that's all I remember."
Davis suffered a fractured jaw and broken teeth, swelling of his brain, nerve damage on his right side and partial paralysis.
He spent a month in intensive care and was recently transferred to a rehabilitation center, where he's making a recovery but is still unable to freely move his right arm and fingers.
A witness identified Gallimore at a nearby laundromat and called police. Davis said he identified the men in a police lineup earlier this week.
Cook County Judge James Brown ordered both men held on $750,000 bail each.
Gallimore is a student at Truman College, according to court records. His Facebook page indicates he also went to the Howard Area Leadership Academy alternative high school and is from Jamaica. Rudon is a native of Belize, court records show.
"Like Michael said, crime doesn’t pay," said Alicia Webb, Davis' niece, when reached by phone Tuesday. "We were just looking for justice for him, and this will be the first step in that."
Webb said her main concern is that her uncle makes a full recovery.
"He’s making some pretty significant progress" and could return home soon, she said.
Friends and family have raised more than $50,000 since the June 17 attack to help pay for Davis' health care, said Mike All, who helped to establish the Michael Davis Life Fund.
At an Aug. 11 benefit at Rogers Park's Mayne Stage, $12,000 was raised, he said.
"I’m relieved. I’m excited they caught somebody — the people who did it," All said. "I hope that the two that they caught are the two that did it — and that justice would be served."
