Thirty-year-old Neal Auricchio has worn many uniforms, previously as a Marine and currently as an officer of the Woodbridge Police Department. But it was his Rangers hockey jersey that may have made him the target of a brutal beating Monday night.
"He got banged up pretty badly," his father Neal Auricchio, Sr., told NBC New York Wednesday. "Stitches in the one eye, and the other eye is pretty puffed up. He went for a CAT scan today, and we're waiting for the results on that."
Video of the assault was posted to YouTube Monday night, after the Philadelphia Flyers and the New York Rangers faced off in the Winter Classic in Philadelphia. Three men wearing Flyers jerseys are seen in the video assaulting two men wearing New York Rangers jerseys in front of the famed Geno's Steaks eatery.
Police in Philadelphia said the brawl started when the Flyers fans in the orange jerseys paid a man who was cleaning car windows to spray a Ranger fan with some sort of liquid.
A man wearing a number-28 Claude Giroux Flyers jersey first goaded, then swung at a man in a number-24 Ryan Callahan Rangers jersey, the video shows. A melee ensued, and the man in the Rangers jersey punched back but was quickly taken to the ground where two other apparent Flyers fans joined in.
It wasn't clear which of the assaulted Rangers fans Auricchio was, but the off-duty patrolman was beaten so severely he was hospitalized with a concussion.
The former Marine earned a Purple Heart in Iraq, even going back for a second tour after he was shot in the leg.
His father told NBC New York his son was upset to see video of the beating online.
"He's angry, he's upset," said Auricchio, Sr. "It's on a video, it's out there in public domain, and it was just a couple cheap shots by people who got a little excessive in their festivities."
Woodbridge Mayor John McCormac, a friend of the family, visited Auricchio's home Wednesday. He told NBC New York he hoped that witnesses to the senseless beating will come forward and bring the men to justice.