A judge on Friday found that 9 of 10 youths had joined in beating three white women in Long Beach on Halloween night.
The youngest defendant, a 12-year-old girl, was, in effect, acquitted of any involvement in what Judge Gibson Lee ruled was a hate crime by some of the teenagers. Sentences could range from probation to months in a county youth camp.
At least six of the defendants, wearing jail sweatshirts, broke into tears when the verdicts were read.
“It’s not over yet,” said a relative of one of the defendants.
“There are no winners today,” said Brian Shern, supervising attorney for the district attorney’s Juvenile Court operations in Long Beach.
Ten black youths, ages 12 to 18, were accused of assault with intent to cause great bodily harm in the attack on the three women in a well-to-do neighborhood. Eight on trial faced a hate crime sentencing enhancement after Lee agreed with the prosecution’s claim that the youths, none with a criminal record, besieged the young women out of racial hatred.
The assault left Loren Hyman, 21, with multiple fractures in her nose and around her eye. Laura Schneider, 19, was knocked unconscious and likely suffered a concussion. There was no testimony that the third woman, Michelle Smith, 19, suffered significant injuries.
The incident outraged the community after it was reported in a Long Beach Press-Telegram interview with the victims, who described the youths as “a pack of hyenas.”
The newspaper called the attack “a horrific hate crime.”
The trial, which began Nov. 28, did little to dampen emotions. Prosecutors tried to make sense of the pandemonium that night. They had to decipher who, on a darkened street with hundreds of people, joined a mob of roughly 30 that took part in the beating.
The judge ruled that witnesses could testify anonymously, then reversed himself three times. A witness’ car was wrecked in an alleged act of intimidation and a deputy district attorney blamed defense attorneys for it in open court.
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