DETROIT, MI -- A crowd of soccer fans on Sunday went silent in the middle of a game and collectively took part in a poignant gesture honoring a referee killed in an on-field altercation last week.

The Detroit City Football Club is known for its frenzied fans, but they put a momentary halt to soccer-crazed shenanigans just before halftime Sunday in a game against the Cincinnati Saints played at Cass Tech High School.

They quietly raised red cards at the 44th minute, paying tribute to John Bieniewicz, a 44-year Westland man who died July 1, two days after being struck in the neck area as he attempted to raise a red card to signify a player's ejection during a recreational adult-league soccer match in Livonia.

Police believe the player who was being ejected punched Bieniewicz, who was a dialysis technician at Mott Children's Hospital in Ann Arbor and president of the Metro Detroit Soccer Officials Organization.

"It's a horrible tragedy. It should never have happened. It's just senseless," said Gene Butcher, member of a group of Detroit City FC fans known as Norther Guard Supporters, which handed out the cards and organized the gesture.

"On the back of the cards, it's got details on his life and where you can donate online and we just thought it would be nice to hold up red cards in a moment of silence from 44 minutes on to the half."

An online fundraising effort to help Bieniewicz's family had raised nearly $110,000 by Sunday.

An autopsy performed last week revealed that Bieniewicz died of blunt force trauma to the neck.

Bassel Saad, 36, of Dearborn was charged -- before Bieniewicz was declared dead July 1 -- with assault with intent to do great bodily harm.

The prosecutor's office has said the charge could be amended.

Saad's lawyer has claimed his client is not guilty and that it was something else that injured Bieniewicz.

In a 911 recording released last week, a witness told dispatchers Bieniewicz's attacker knocked him unconscious and ran with another man to a Jeep Wrangler, peeling out of the parking lot while bystanders attempted to perform CPR on the referee.

He was declared dead at Detroit Receiving Hospital two days later.

"John Bieniewicz was a man who lived life to the fullest," Bieniewicz's friends wrote on the fundraising webpage. "He had a passion for his family, a passion for the kids at Mott Children's Hospital, and a passion for soccer. John died doing what he loved: officiating a soccer game."

MLive Detroit reporter Khalil AlHajal contributed to this report.