The story the man with the large, bloody gash across his forehead initially told police sounded pretty bad: In for a visit from Chicago, he was sitting inside the Boston Beer Garden on E. Broadway when a melee broke out and some unknown person threw a glass bottle right at his head.
A Boston Police detective told the Boston Licensing Board this morning, though, that while the man was, in fact, from Chicago, and he did have to be taken away in an ambulance, there was no fight on the evening of Nov. 24.
Instead, Det. Sgt. Kenneth O'Brien said, the man was pals with some locals and they were all fooling around with a beer bottle, a prank went horribly awry, the man got his forehead opened up and he and his pals made up the story about stranger danger. He added that one friend helped another friend - the actual bottle flinger, get away before police could question him.
"They all decided to say it was an unknown suspect," O'Brien said.
O'Brien said the Chicago man, now safely back home 900 miles away, is refusing to cooperate with his investigation.
The board decides Thursday what action, if any, to take.