Who Is Austin Freni? US Serviceman Attacked For Wearing Army Jacket While Visiting Mother

Austin Freni, a U.S. Army Serviceman, was reportedly attacked and viciously beaten on New Year’s Day while he was walking home with his widowed mother from a parade in Philadelphia. He was reportedly assaulted by a group of 10 to 15 young men who blasted pejorative statements about the army. After one of the men issued the first punch against Freni, the rest of them were said to have piled on top of the serviceman.

Freni, 19, who was scheduled to be deployed to the Middle East in the following months, had traveled home to Philadelphia before Christmas to surprise his mother on the holidays. Local law enforcement authorities in southern Philadelphia were not able to immediately converse with Freni because he received a broken jaw during the incident, according to local reports Wednesday.

Investigators were not made aware of the alleged incident until the following day, a representative of the Philadelphia Police Department Lt. John Stanford said.

The mother, Lori Freni, told local reporters her son was wearing an army jacket when he was attacked and that he was “good kid” who “did not deserve this.” She said Austin Freni was also with his girlfriend and leaving the Mummers Parade when the attack started.

“Me and his girlfriend tried pulling them off and they hit us,” Lori Freni told a local reporter Monday. “We got hit in the face. She got thrown in the street.”

The Mummers Parade is reportedly the oldest folk festival in the U.S. where an estimated 60,000 visitors are encouraged to dress in elaborate costumes, perform choreographed dance numbers and create decadent movable scenery—all to the tune of folk music.

Lori Freni said she had planned on seeing her son off at the airport to head back to his army base at Fort Benning, Georgia, but that he remains bedridden at a local Philadelphia hospital in “rough shape.” She added that her son needed to have artificial plates surgically inserted into his jaw and that his mouth would be wired shut for the next eight weeks.

It had been brutal times for the Freni family; the father recently died from brain cancer and Lori Freni lost her job because of an unidentified disability. Austin Freni could not initially afford the airfare to visit his mother on the holidays, but an anonymous Good Samaritan covered the fee upon hearing news about his family’s circumstances.