A Veterans of Foreign Wars lodge where a man was brutally beaten in what the victim’s family called a hate crime agreed to close permanently, while authorities Friday kept searching for a suspect labeled as “armed, dangerous and mentally unstable” by the Beaver County district attorney.
The lodge’s leadership “are voluntarily closing down” VFW Post 3577, a veterans club on Aliquippa’s Penn Avenue, after meeting with a trooper in the state police’s liquor control enforcement division, District Attorney Nathan Bible told TribLive on Friday.
“Sorry,” the lodge posted to Facebook, “we are closed indefinitely, effective immediately.”
The lodge’s liquor license shifted in Harrisburg from “active” to “safekeeping,” state Liquor Control Board records showed Friday.
“‘Safekeeping’ means the licensee still has their licensee and that they’re not using it,” liquor control board spokesman Shawn Kelly told TribLive. “Most people think the Liquor Control Board can shut an establishment down. But we cannot.”
“They’ve voluntarily closed down,” Bible told TribLive.
Aliquippa police and state police did not return phone calls or emails Friday seeking comment.
Neither did Jason T. Shackleford, the VFW official that the lodge’s license lists as its manager and quartermaster.
The family of Preston Coleman III, 52, of Aliquippa, said he was beaten, unprovoked and mercilessly, for nearly 30 minutes late Sunday inside the lodge.
Coleman remained hospitalized this week after being punched nearly 250 times, police said. The attack left Coleman with head injuries, brain swelling and bleeding, major fractures in his face and at least three broken ribs.
Surveillance footage of the vicious attack was among the most disturbing videos that Bible, who was elected DA in 2023, has seen in more than a decade of practicing law.
“I’ve seen autopsy photos, I’ve seen homicide photos,” Bible said. “But the way this all transpired, the way this guy was beaten, it was gruesome.”
“For me to say, ‘This happened in my county?’” Bible added, “it was chilling.”
Bible declined to comment on what authorities specifically are doing to find the central suspect in the attack — Brett Ours, 39, also of Aliquippa.
Police filed nine criminal charges earlier this week against Ours, including attempted murder of the first degree, court records show.
But Ours remained at large Friday afternoon.
A second alleged attacker — Ronald Brown, 43, of Ambridge — turned himself in Thursday to Aliquippa police and a district judge, court records show. He was charged with aggravated assault after, police said, he punched Coleman seven times as Ours held down the victim in the midst of the half-hour attack.
Brown was released Thursday from Beaver County Prison after posting a bond for $100,000, court records show.
Three of the victim’s family members told reporters this week that race might have triggered the two men, and possibly others, to attack Coleman that night.
Ours and Brown are white. Coleman is Black.
“He was targeted,” said Coleman’s daughter, Taquesha Tucker, 34, of Aliquippa. “He never saw it coming.”
The family said Coleman might have been the only Black man inside the lodge at the time of the attack.
Bible said details of the attack — such as whether Ours used racial slurs while attacking Coleman — remain unclear. But he told TribLive he’s “certainly not ruling out” potential hate-crime charges.
“It’s difficult, based on just viewing the video,” he said. “I’m keeping that on the table, though, without question.”
More importantly, he said, area residents should avoid Ours, the primary suspect, if they see him.
“He is armed, dangerous and mentally unstable,” Bible said. “I watched the video a couple times. The way he snapped, the viciousness of the attack. This would be a big concern for me, in terms of his instability.”
Bible said Friday he did not have specific details about security measures at the VFW lodge, such as whether doors were locked or members needed to present an ID to gain entrance.
Bible did confirm four people — Coleman, Ours, Ours’ girlfriend and the lodge’s bartender — were inside the lodge’s bar at the time Ours allegedly attacked Coleman around 11 p.m. Sunday.
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Brown, the second suspect, entered the room about 10 or 15 minutes into the assault, he said.
Bible said it also is too early to say if additional criminal charges will be filed.
“We’re still waiting for the investigation to shake out,” he said.