Ojai Youth, Friend Hurt in Midnight Beach Attack : Crime: A crowd said gang names while beating and stabbing the two victims. The 15-year-old is in intensive care.

An Ojai teen-ager was in the intensive care unit and his companion was also hospitalized after they were beaten with sticks and stabbed repeatedly by 15 to 20 people near the Ventura Harbor about 12:10 a.m. Sunday, Ventura police said.

The apparently unprovoked attack left 15-year-old David Foyle of Ojai in serious condition in intensive care at Ventura County Medical Center. Brady Sabat, 19, of Oak View was in good condition with 13 minor stab wounds and other injuries.

Police stopped two cars shortly after the attack and confiscated two knives and a bloodstained jacket. Six people were arrested and released pending the results of laboratory tests.

Sabat said he and David had been to the movies with a friend earlier in the evening. The friend dropped them off at the beach across from the harbor while he took his girlfriend home and was to return to pick them up, Sabat said.

As the two walked toward the beach, they saw a group sitting around a bonfire. Sabat said about 20 people from the group, some carrying sticks, came toward them. He and David ran, but the group caught them and began kicking, beating and stabbing them, Sabat said.

“They caught me several times, but I just kept getting up and running again,” Sabat said. “Finally I got away, but I was pretty worked over by then. I’m not in that bad a shape today, but my friend is.”

Sabat ran to Hornblower’s Restaurant at the harbor, where an off-duty Santa Monica police officer calmed him and called for help.

David was found bleeding in the beach parking lot by a Ventura man who had been with friends at the beach. The man carried him to the restaurant.

“You just can’t walk by somebody and leave him there when you think he might be bleeding to death,” said the man, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution from the assailants.

Police stopped two cars near Johnson Drive and Telephone Road shortly after the attack and arrested five men and a juvenile on suspicion of attempted murder. All six were released pending results of laboratory tests for blood residue on the knives, said Ventura Police Sgt. Gary Moore.

“Obviously they didn’t have enough evidence to keep them or they would have booked them,” Moore said.

Sabat told police he heard his assailants use the words “Warlords” and “Haoles,” names of Ventura-area gangs, according to police.

But Moore said it was unclear whether the incident was gang-related. The beach, also known as the South Jetty, is a traditional gathering place for young people, Moore said.

Lying in his hospital bed Sunday, Sabat said he does not know what prompted the attack.

“We walked about five feet from their bonfire and the next thing we knew, they were attacking us,” he said. “I don’t belong to any gangs. . . . We’re both from Ojai.”