TOLEDO, Ohio — Felix Ronau has worked at the Marco's Pizza in west Toledo's Library Village for five years.
On Halloween last week, he and a group of employees were told by a customer something was wrong outside of the restaurant at 1234 W. Sylvania Ave.
"I just cannot even get across why you would do something like this to a person," Ronau said. "We see him laying over here, just face first into the ground. His arm was up on the railing, there was just blood everywhere, blood on his shirt, blood on the back of his head."
According to a report from the Toledo Police Department, officers responded shortly after 1 p.m. on Halloween to a call of 71-year-old Thomas Loeffler, who was injured and lying on a parking barrier in an empty lot behind the pizza shop after allegedly
TPD's report says Loeffler is homeless. Ronau, however, described him as helpless.
"I couldn't even make out his eyes. They were just so enlarged you couldn't even notice anything. There was bruising all over him," he said.
While the case is still under investigation, TPD and ProMedica confirmed that Loeffler is alive and in critical condition.
But Toledo-Lucas County Homelessness Board's executive director, Julie Embree, is outraged.
"It's a senseless act of violence," Embree said. "Our homeless are our neighbors. They are part of our community and we need to treat them with human kindness, so the fact that someone would make them a victim of this is really sad."
Embree worries about what happens next though, especially in a city where she says access to shelters is a problem.
"We have over 350 households on a waitlist, between individuals and families right now waiting for shelter, so being able to just quickly engage them and get them into a shelter is not feasible," Embree said.
Ronau is hoping for answers from a moment that's still on his mind.
"Seeing him in that condition was just kind of haunting to me for a little bit," he said. "But knowing that he is still alive still gives me a little bit better of a place of mind."
It is not known at this time if police have any suspects.
If you have any information, you are asked to call or text Crime Stoppers at 419-255-1111.