Here is the victim's recount of the attack.---------
http://www.miamiherald.com/1460/story/1420087.htmlMichael Brewer describes the day he was set on fire
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There were things Michael Brewer remembered vividly about the day he was set on fire.
The Deerfield Beach teenager remembered the cool feeling of rubbing alcohol splashing onto him. He remembered the burning sensation, the impulse to run and jump into the swimming pool. He remembered wanting to stay in the water, and seeing the first results of the horrific attack he had just endured.
Detectives recorded their Nov. 23 interview with Brewer, 15, who survived burns over two-thirds of his body and recovered enough to be released from the Jackson Memorial Hospital Burn Center a few days before Christmas. Prosecutors on Monday released the recording, along with dozens of other documents related to the case.
There was ``cold stuff all over my clothes, and all of a sudden, burning,'' Brewer told detectives. ``Somebody poured something on me, and got me on fire. Then I started running and I jumped into the pool.''
But there were things he did not remember. He didn't recall being taunted or accused of snitching on Matthew Bent, 15, who has been charged with attempted murder and accused of ordering the Oct. 12 attack. He didn't recall shaking hands with Bent or agreeing to pay him $40 for a video game.
He didn't remember the game at all.
``He wanted me to buy something from him that I didn't want to buy,'' Brewer recalled. ``I don't know what it was. It was stolen, I think it was.''
In a separate interview, Brewer's father told investigators that Bent tried to get Brewer to buy a ``Little Mermaid'' video game, then demanded $40 for it even though Brewer never accepted the game or brought it home, according to court records.
Another witness gave a similar account, telling detectives that Bent ``tried to sell'' something to Brewer that was stolen.
On Oct. 11, Bent tried to collect the $40 from Brewer, following him home and then trying to steal his father's bicycle, according to accounts provided by Brewer, his father, his sister and several friends. When family members ordered Bent off their property, he reportedly left. He came back 15 minutes later, witnesses said, with Denver Colorado Jarvis, 15, at his side.
Brewer's mother, Valerie, told detectives that Bent stood outside the house and tried to provoke her husband.
``Bring out your punk ass out here! I have something for you,'' she quoted him as saying. ``Come out and fight me now.''
Instead, the Brewers called 911 and Bent was arrested.
He was out of jail the next day, and Michael Brewer said he was so afraid of getting jumped by Bent that he skipped school. When school let out, he went to the nearby Lime Tree Village apartments to find a friend.
He found Bent and eight others, most of whom he knew. Jarvis and his brother Jeremy, 13. ``Junior,'' later identified as Jesus Mendez, 15. Four other friends, and a teenager he did not recognize, later identified as Steven Shelton, 15. Bent, Mendez and Denver Jarvis have been charged with attempted murder. Initial charges against Jeremy Jarvis and Steven Shelton were dropped.
After a brief initial confrontation, Brewer told detectives, he knew he was in trouble when Bent caught up with him on a bicycle and the other boys jumped a wall and surrounded him.
``Nobody's going to hit you,'' Brewer recalled Bent saying.
Then Denver Jarvis poured the alcohol onto him, followed quickly by the fire and the race to the pool to douse the flames, Brewer said.
Brewer, still in the pool, urged onlookers to leave him in the water.
``I said, `No. Leave me, leave me.' Because my skin was, like, hanging,'' Brewer said.
One witness described Bent ordering Denver Jarvis to pour the alcohol on Brewer, but the witness said Bent did not order anyone to light him on fire. The Sun Sentinel is withholding the witness' name because of his age.
``He was like, `Yeah, pour it on him, just pour it on him.' And they weren't planning to set him on fire,'' said the witness, described by Brewer as a friend. ``They were just gonna pour it on him, like, to make him scared or something.''
Statements by the three defendants still facing charges were not released. Their attorneys declined to comment Monday.
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As you can see here, the harassment of the family by low life oxygen thieves continues.http://www.miamiherald.com/486/story/1420139.htmlBreak-in reported at burned teen's Deerfield Beach home
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BY RAFAEL A. OLMEDA
Sun Sentinel
Broward sheriff's deputies were called twice in recent days to the Deerfield Beach home owned by the family of Michael Brewer, the teenager who survived being set on fire in a confrontation with a group of schoolmates last fall.
According to an incident report, Brewer's sister, Malissa Durkee, called 911 early Monday to report that someone cut through an air conditioner's plastic window filler and reached inside, frightening her and her 5-year-old daughter.
The incident was reported at 2:56 a.m. Durkee told investigators she did not see the would-be burglar's skin because a long-sleeve sweater covered his arm and hand.
Two days earlier, according to another report, deputies were called to investigate a petty theft at the home on South Deerfield Avenue. Durkee told them someone took a stroller off her lawn and threw it across the street. Some items and cash, which were in the stroller, were missing, and a work permit for roof repairs was torn off the front of the house.
The Broward Sheriff's Office said it was stepping up patrols in the neighborhood to guard against harassment of the Brewer family. Last November, Durkee reported two burned dolls were found in the family's swimming pool.
Brewer was assaulted Oct. 12 and spent more than two months in the hospital recovering from burns over two-thirds of his body. He does not plan to return to Deerfield Beach, family members have said. Three youths have been charged in the attack.
