DETROIT – Steve Utash, the victim of a mob beating, remains in a rehabilitation hospital, but his family doesn't know if he'll ever be the same again.
Five people have been arrested in connection to the brutal mob beating that left him critically injured. Now, one of those suspects is at home, freed on bond, and spoke to Local 4 about what happened that day.
"I'm not the perfect dude," said Latrez Cummings. "I did stuff in my past (but) I'm not the kind of dude everybody thinks I am. I was there. Don't mean I did anything. Police say something about people everyday; don't mean it's all true. I was just basically at the wrong place at the wrong time."
Cummings said he was one of several people that day who ran into the street to help the 9-year-old boy who was hit by Utash.
"I was going to try and help him and they were like, 'Don't touch him, he might have something broke.' Little dude was crying then that's how it all escalated," he said.
Cummings said that's when the violence erupted.
"Words get exchanged, they fighting and in the middle I see it was time for me to leave," Cummings said. "I never hit the dude."
Utash, 54, was left to die in the middle of the road. He then spent weeks in a coma.
Cummings was arrested and charged with assault with the intent to murder and assault with the intent to do great bodily harm.
Four other men remain in jail for the beating.
When asked if he was worried about going to jail for a long time for a crime he said he didn't commit, Cummings said, "No, I'm not worried at all. I pray everyday. I know I didn't do it. Nothing to be worried about."
Cummings also had a message for Utash.
"Prayers to him. (I) hope he gets better," Cummings said. "I didn't do anything to him so there's no beef between me and him. Prayers to him and his family."