Man dies in beating at downtown park

Witness details midday attack

Boston police investigated at the scene of the fatal attack just before noon yesterday near Faneuil Hall Marketplace. An assailant was being sought. (David Kamerman/Globe Staff)

A man was beaten to death yesterday morning in a downtown park near Faneuil Hall Marketplace, not far from where tourists sat on benches and milled about the Holocaust Memorial.

Boston police were called to the intersection of North and Union streets just before noon with a report that a drunk man was lying on the ground, bleeding.

"His friend said he'd been assaulted," said a Boston police spokesman, Officer Eddy Chrispin.

A witness who was sitting on a bench across from the Purple Shamrock pub told the Globe that the man was approached by four others and beaten over the head with "what looked like a towel."

"He was lying on the ground, bleeding from the head and not moving. There must have been something hard inside," she said, before being escorted away by a Boston homicide detective.

The victim, described as a 40-year-old male, was transported to Massachusetts General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Police were waiting to notify relatives before releasing his identity.

The slaying was the city's 31st of the year, Chrispin said. The number climbed to 32 later in the day - the same number at this time last year - after a 17-year-old male was shot and killed in Hyde Park.

Authorities were looking for an assailant described as a black male, 6 feet, 2 inches tall, wearing a red shirt, and carrying a white bag.