Students at Manhattan Beach Middle School were involved in a violent assault on a Hermosa Beach man that sent the 57-year-old victim to a hospital and led to the arrest of two of the alleged teen attackers, the school’s principal confirmed.
The bold and seemingly unprompted attack has outraged the coastal community and stoked simmering frustrations around alleged teen e-bike gangs organizing under names such as the Goons and the Redondo Beach Killers.
Now it appears that some of the alleged attackers came from the neighboring city of Manhattan Beach. In a Sunday email to parents, Manhattan Beach Middle School Principal Matthew Horvath said that students at the school were involved in the incident, the Manhattan Beach News reported. Representatives for the district did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Surveillance video recordings of the Nov. 21 incident show a group of teens on e-bikes surrounding the victim, knocking him to the ground and repeatedly kicking and punching him in an alleyway near the Hermosa Beach Pier. One of the attackers can be heard yelling “he’s dead, he’s dead” as the minors flee the area.
Hermosa Beach police said they identified the five alleged attackers, who are 13 to 15 years old. The two primary assailants were arrested Wednesday on suspicion of felony assault and transported to a juvenile detention facility, police said. Their identity has not been released.
“This event has understandably caused concern, anger, and sadness across our community, and I share those feelings,” Horvath wrote in the email to parents. “While I must protect student privacy and respect the ongoing police investigation, I can confirm that MBMS students were involved in this off-campus incident.”
Problems with teenage e-bike gangs were recently discussed in a Nov. 13 public safety forum in Hermosa Beach, the Easy Reader reported. E-biking teens in the beach cities have also been accused of igniting fireworks on the Hermosa Beach Pier as well as assaulting and terrorizing residents.
“Everyone has heard a lot about the Goons and Redondo Beach Killers,” Detective Dalton Blumenfeld said at the meeting. “Our goal is to hold them accountable.”
He said that reports of these groups had been increasing in recent years, but clarified that they are not established criminal gangs recognized by the Department of Justice.
Tensions continued to run high at another community forum on Monday night where residents demanded accountability for the attack and a stop to violence perpetrated by e-biking teens.
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