Man facing murder charge after Halloween hate attack victim dies at hospital
A Sacramento man is now facing homicide charges after the man beaten comatose in a brutal Halloween beating in Sacramento’s Lavender Heights died at an area hospital, Sacramento police said Monday.
Sean Wesley Payton, 25, has been held in Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center near Elk Grove since his arrest early Nov. 1, hours after the attack that left a man in a coma outside Badlands nightclub in the 2000 block of K Street. Sacramento Police Department in a statement Monday afternoon said it learned of the man’s death on Sunday.
Payton had appeared for a mid-November preliminary hearing on charges of assault by means of force intended to cause great bodily injury and resisting peace officers, as well as hate crime charges in the attack. Sacramento County District Attorney’s prosecutors in their filing also alleged Payton attacked the man because of his sexual orientation.
Sacramento County Coroner’s officials will release the man’s identity after notifying next of kin. Family and friends have identified the man as Alvin Prasad. Family members interviewed by KCRA-TV in the days after the assault, said the man’s head struck concrete in the attack.
Weeks after the attack on Prasad, Sacramento leaders met in Lavender Heights with members of the city’s LGBTQ community who voiced their fears and frustration to city leaders.
Some at the meeting earlier this month cited frustration with emergency response times and perceived homophobia among law enforcement while others called for leaders to publicly assure the safety of the city’s LGBTQ community.
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