An update
10 held in beating death
Only one is adult; more suspects sought; murder charges expected
by Jamaal Abdul-Alim and Jessica McBride
Nine boys and one adult are in custody after the savage beating of a 36-year-old Milwaukee man who died Tuesday evening.
Among those prosecutors expect to charge with murder in adult court is a 10-year-old boy, who could be the youngest person ever prosecuted as an adult in Wisconsin.
Milwaukee Police Chief Arthur Jones said eight of those in custody have confessed to their roles in the beating death of Charlie Young Jr., who died Tuesday evening at Wauwatosa's Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital after being attacked Sunday by about 20 boys and young men.
Police scoured the violence-plagued near north side neighborhood some residents call Little Beirut for at least six more juveniles thought to have participated in the attack.
The chief said the pack of youths bludgeoned Young with bats, shovels, folding chairs and a rake because he had punched a 14-year-old in the mouth after another youth hit Young with an egg.
Residents in the area said groups of teenagers had been tormenting the neighborhood much of the summer, and neighbors referred to the group that attacked Young as a "bike gang."
Jones stressed that the investigation into the beating was in its early stages, but he said all the evidence points to a conclusion that investigators have already reached - the beating was a random act and not orchestrated by a gang.
"We have every reason to believe they were not a gang as we describe a gang," Jones said.
"We have no reason to believe that whatsoever. However, if any of the individuals have any other gang affiliations, we don't know that at this time."
All of the juveniles could be charged as adults, and Jones said he was also considering seeking charges, such as neglect or contributing to the delinquency of a minor, against their parents.
There is a "parental responsibility that has not been taken care of," Jones said at a news conference Tuesday.
But it was the youths Young was fleeing Sunday night.
'They were right on him'
Jones said the incident started around 11 p.m. on the 2100 block of W. Brown St. when the boy tossed an egg at Young, hitting him in the shoulder. Young chased the boy and attempted to confront him when a 14-year-old boy stepped between them, Jones said.
Young punched the 14-year-old and knocked out one of his teeth, Jones said.
Young fled and tried to hide in some bushes from the growing gang of youngsters, but he was soon spotted.
Area resident Anthony Brown said in an interview that he saw Young running at breakneck speed through a yard facing the duplex in which Brown lives. He knew Young because Young came to the neighborhood frequently to visit the woman who lives in the upstairs flat of the duplex.
Brown said Young scaled a 6-foot-tall chain-link fence, ran up the steps and made it into the cramped foyer.
"Then I saw the boys," Brown said. "Some coming this way, some coming that way. They were right on him."
Brown estimates 20 boys pummeled Young with the brooms, shovels and bats in the foyer, none of them uttering a single word. As Brown tried to help Young, other boys broke through his front living room window and crawled inside to join the melee.
"They were hitting him over my shoulder," Brown said. "Then they dragged him out."
Lawyers suggest self-defense
In a hearing Tuesday for five of the boys arrested, Assistant District Attorney Joy Hammond depicted all of the boys as participants in a "savage" and "horrific" beating.
But some of the boys' defense attorneys - noting police reports in which some of the boys and witnesses said Young was armed with one or two knives - said the boys may have been acting in self-defense.
"I don't think this is all black and white," said defense attorney Frederick M. Van Hecke, who is representing the 14-year-old boy whose tooth was knocked out.
Prosecutors said the case merited stiff treatment of the suspects.
For example, the defense attorney for the boy accused of throwing the egg at Young said his role in the beating was "grossly overstated" and the throwing of the egg "looks like a prank" that set of a chain of events beyond the boy's control.
Said Court Commissioner Dennis Cimpl of the 13-year-old boy: "He's the one that threw the egg that started the incident, and now (a) man is brain-dead. That makes him a danger to the community."
In another exchange, defense attorney Anne Kenney, representing the 10-year-old boy, said the age of the boy made him more susceptible than the others to following a "group mentality."
Cimpl countered, "He was close enough to a savage beating to have his shoes and his shirt covered with blood."
Throughout the court proceedings Tuesday, Cimpl kept asking a question that many observers have wondered: Where were the boys' parents?
At one point, the mother of two of the boys asked to respond, but Cimpl angrily cut her off, saying she was letting her sons roam the streets near curfew as part of a mob.
"Can I say something?" the woman asked Cimpl.
"No!" Cimpl barked.
Later, in an interview with a reporter, the woman explained that she left her home about 10:30 p.m. Sunday for her job at a Glendale nursing home. She said both boys were in the house at the time.
"How they got out, I don't know," the woman said. "I'm just one person."
The woman said the boys' father was stabbed to death outside a drug rehab center in April 2001. (Oh, you know that 2Thick is going to be all over this one. - Stumpy)
The woman is the mother of a 13-year-old boy and a 14-year-old boy who are suspects in the case. The 14-year-old is the one whose tooth was knocked out.
No plans for more patrols
County Supervisor Lee Holloway, whose district is very close to the crime scene, said he planned to ask the police chief to give special attention to neighborhoods where a lack of through-streets creates an island where police rarely patrol and crime flourishes.
That was the geography of the blocks where the youths ran rampant, Holloway said.
"You've got a natural boundary that hides and holds crime," he said. "It becomes a 'hood.' "
But Jones said he had no plans to step up patrols in the high-crime neighborhood because it already receives an intense amount of police resources.
"This is a serious random act of violence," he said. "I'm not trying to put it down. But I'm concerned and other members of the Police Department are concerned about the neighborhood. And we're very much concerned about Charlie Young Jr. and his family.
"We're going to try to assure that this type of situation doesn't happen again in (any) neighborhood in Milwaukee."
Tuesday, Brown was left to mop up the blood on his front porch.
"I tried to do anything I could do," he said as he sat in his unkempt and sparsely furnished living room. "There were just too many of these people."
He shook his head. The blood might have been gone, but the chill remained.
"Some of these kids were this tall," he said, waving his hand in front of his chest.
"There was no reason for this," he said. "Kids - they have no respect for older people. No morals. They don't care."
from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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