While Black Lives Matter sympathizers were brutally beating and robbing Marine Veteran Christopher Marquez, another Marine, 35-year-old Michael Schroeder, was fighting for his life after being beaten and left for dead in another part of Washington D.C.
Schroeder, who served in Iraq, was dragged and his head was bashed in; he was freezing and lying face-down when police officers found him.
“It’s an angel whoever found him and I’m very, very grateful,” the Marine’s mother Diedre Schroeder said. She added that her son had been missing for hours, and it was Schroeder’s twin brother who found him at George Washington Hospital.
The two Marines were beaten in apparently unrelated incidents. Michael Schroeder required staples in his fractured skull. He also suffered a severe concussion and could barely speak by the time his family arrived to see him.
“Michael could’ve died that night,” Diedre said.
“I wasn’t trying to find trouble. I was actually just trying to walk home,” Michael Schroeder whispered to investigators. He has very little recollection of the events of the night of February 12.
Michael Schroeder did recall being out with his friends drinking before leaving the bar and heading home. Police investigates say surveillance cameras show Schroeder walking through a parking lot before disappearing.
Diedre Schroeder, Michael’s twin brother who is also a Marine, quotes the doctors as saying that Michael’s injuries suggest he had been violently blindsided and attacked from behind.
“This will probably go down as an assault or attempted robbery, but when you hit somebody in the head and that hard enough to fracture their skull with something harder than a metal or fist, it should be looked at as attempted murder,” Diedre Schroeder said.
“It’s hard for me to understand, because there would’ve been zero reason for it,” said Michael Schroeder.
The Marine said he was missing $40 to $60 from his pocket, according to WUSA9.
Police are still investigating Schroeder’s attack and say they have yet to identify a suspect.