At first, Mitcheal Pope’s family considered him lucky to be alive.
A hammer-wielding homeless homophobe attacked him on the morning of Oct. 13, 2014, as the Brooklyn artist walked to Dunkin’ Donuts around the corner from his Crown Heights apartment. The deranged bum followed him and cracked him over the head, screaming “f–king f–got!”
“He was rushed to the hospital, and by the grace of God he was all right,” said Petra Pope of her 33-year-old nephew.
Doctors at New York Methodist Hospital attended to his skull fracture and put five staples in his head, but it appeared he would make a full recovery. Two days after it had begun, the nightmare seemed to be over.
But it was really just beginning.
“Right after the incident, everything appeared to be normal,” said Mitcheal’s mother, Agnes Watson. A month later, “all of a sudden he really, really started acting different. He was becoming delusional and paranoid.”
His mother, a veteran cop who lives in California, received desperate phone calls in the night.
“He kept calling and telling me that I need to get Randal, his brother, out of Texas. ‘Because it’s evil’ he would say, and that evil demons live in Texas. He said Randal and his family needed to get out because they were going to get it,” Watson recalled.
“I started being like, ‘Wow, this is kind of reminding me of some of the people out here that have mental-illness issues,” she said.
Within a few months, the madness completely took hold.
“At the last dinner we had together all we spoke about was how he had healing powers and that he could heal people. He thought he was godlike and invincible,” his heartbroken aunt explained.
Early in the morning of Jan. 17, 2015, Pope was found dead outside his apartment building on Washington Avenue and Sullivan Place, after apparently leaping from his third-story window.
The city medical examiner ruled out drugs and said a brain injury could have affected his behavior, Mitcheal’s family said. They say whoever viciously attacked him in 2014 should now be treated as a murderer.
“Whoever did this to my son back in October should be held responsible,” Watson said. “He absolutely contributed to my son’s death.”
One suspect was arrested on Nov. 7 in relation to the bashing, which police classified as an anti-gay hate crime, but was released on his alibi.
Cops were also looking into a potential link between Mitcheal’s attack and a suspect indicted for four hammer assaults and one attempted murder in Manhattan, but a case against him couldn’t be made.
The detective assigned to the case did not return a message seeking comment.
“The police are not doing what they need to do. This guy needs to be held accountable,” Watson fumed.
“I don’t think my son is resting in peace,” Watson said. “No one in my family has found peace because this could have been prevented.”
While the family raises the legal issue of treating Mitcheal’s case as a murder, they are also raising money for a good cause: restoring the iconic stained-glass windows of St. Peter’s Church in Chelsea in Mitchael’s honor — the same church where his memorial service was held.