BEAUMONT, Texas — The family of a 26-year-old man with special needs is speaking out after he was attacked nearly a week ago in a Nederland Park.
Keyton Daws’ family says it's been a traumatic week for them, as they try to understand why this happened.
Doornbos Park is a place Daws loved to visit.
“This park was his safe place, and he came here to pretty much communicate with everybody,” his cousin, Kaiden Taylor said.
Taylor said now Keyton fears this place.
“He's like very shaken up like he can't sleep at night. He's saying he thinks somebody is after him,” Taylor said.
The attack landed him in the hospital with serious injuries.
“They thought they were gonna have to wire his jaw. They ended up, inserting plates inside of his mouth,” Taylor said.
Daws was released from the hospital on Wednesday, July 7 after a successful surgery, but his recovery will be a long process.
Police said the suspect is a 14-year-old teenager who was visiting a relative in the area. Nederland Police Chief Gary Porter said the attack started off as a verbal disturbance between the two.
“He means no harm, even though he does come up to you and talk to you. It's no harm,” Taylor said.
Taylor said all his family wants is for the teenager responsible for the attack to be held accountable.
“For the most for our family is that kid needs to face some sort of consequence from his action because he should know right from wrong,” Taylor said.
Porter said the investigation is still ongoing, but they plan to send the case off to the District Attorney’s office.
“If once we are done with the investigation and it does look like it was, it's a prosecutable case, what we'll do is we'll bring the case to the judge, the judge County District Attorney's Office and they'll refer it most likely to their person that they hit that part of their unit that does juvenile prosecution, and we referring to juvenile probation,” Chief Porter said.
In the meantime, Taylor said it'll be tough for Daws to return to his safe place, Doornbos Park.
“I think it's gonna be really hard for the first half, but I think for right now, he will not be coming back out of here for a while,” Taylor said.
The family is asking that the Southeast Texas community keeps him in prayer.