Update to this story.

Via WaPo:

An Alabama mother said her 17-year-old son — who had recently voiced his support for law enforcement amid protests over fatal police shootings — was severely beaten in an empty parking lot in Sylacauga, an attack she called a racially motivated hate crime.

Brandi Allen told Fox affiliate WBRC that her son, Brian Ogle, suffered a skull fractures in the brutal attack following a Friday-night football game.

“Apparently he was hit with something — what is presumed to be the butt of the pistol on his face,” she said. “He has stitches and he’s got bruising, real bad bruising on his shoulder. There’s a lot of wounds on the back of his head from being hit as well.”

“Instead of us planning for his 18th birthday, we’re here. Why? Because he made a statement that he backs the blue,” Allen told the news station.

“I’m trying to understand how anyone — I don’t care the color of their skin — could do this to another human being.”

A spokeswoman for UAB Hospital in Birmingham said Monday that Ogle was improving and that his condition was upgraded from critical to fair.