Summer of Boredom Ends in Murder

Everybody knew who they were. They were the pack of bullies, a fixture in American neighborhoods as long as there have been kids and summers.

They were the ones who leaned against the fence, smirking, when told to run on home. They were the kids who picked up rocks and threw them through windshields; who grabbed a bicycle that had been left on the front porch. “Monsters,” one woman called them. “Babies,” somebody else said.

What nobody imagined was that they might be killers.

This week, eight youths--as young as 11, the oldest 19--were charged with first-degree murder for allegedly stomping, kicking and beating 30-year-old Erik Toews after asking him for a cigarette as he walked home from work Aug. 19. As Toews lay bleeding, 19-year-old Terrance Hunt allegedly did 28 knee-drops onto his face, counting each one aloud.

They did it, one of the boys told police, “ ‘cause we were bored.”

The youngest of the group, 11-year-old Charles Andrew Neely--a moppy-haired blond who kept rubbing his head on his shoulder as he appeared in juvenile court Thursday--is accused of repeatedly striking Toews with a croquet mallet. He is the youngest person ever to be charged with first-degree murder in the state of Washington.

Two of the youths have been charged as adults. Six have been charged in juvenile court, and prosecutors have two weeks in which to seek to transfer their cases to adult court.

They have all pleaded not guilty.

Now, residents of this blue-collar shipping and logging city south of Seattle are demanding to know why the youths weren’t stopped earlier. In the days since Toews died Aug. 25, after spending nearly a week in a coma, police have said that the same group may have been responsible for at least seven other random beatings in north Tacoma over the last several weeks.

Violence Escalated

One victim was slapped on the back of the head and hit with a baseball bat; several more were knocked to the ground and kicked in the ribs; others had glasses broken, wallets stolen, faces scratched.

At a community meeting Thursday night called to demand answers from police, a disturbing picture emerged as person after person spoke: Not everyone knew about the beatings, but almost everyone knew these kids. They had more stories about them than there was time to tell the tales, although it was all little stuff, not the kind of thing you’d necessarily tell the police about: stolen bikes, broken windows, mouthing off. A bunch of kids standing on a corner that you’d cross the street to avoid.

“I’ve been watching these kids, watching to make sure some other kids don’t get beat up by them. I reported to the police several times these same boys for bullying and fighting,” said Skip Young, a neighborhood resident.

“There’s no way to describe them. They’re monsters,” said Kimberly Stuckert, who said her fiance was beaten by “four or five” of the boys after he tried to keep them away from her daughter. “They just started pounding on him. They’d come over and kick my fence, spit on my dog. One of them stole my son’s $300 bike.”

Stuckert said that Neely, the son of one of her friends, often was at her house. “I kept telling my girlfriend, ‘Why are you letting him run on the streets at night?’ She said when she locked him up the little [brat] drove her crazy. He’d always tell her, ‘Shut up, bitch.’ ”

One of the boys had been kicked out of junior high school for fighting; a 14-year-old was convicted in 1998 for putting a gun to a bicyclist’s head and declaring, “Get off your bike, fool.” Yet even when the most serious of the late-night attacks began July 26, police said they didn’t have enough to arrest anyone.

“I was thinking, yeah, these obnoxious kids, we gotta do something about it,” police Lt. Stan Fisk said. But up until the Toews attack, he said, “all we had was a slap on the head, a fat lip. . . . I had all the confidence in the world my officers would be in the right place at the right time to find these kids.”

After the assault on Toews, 26 undercover officers started going door to door, asking questions. The response was immediate, Sgt. Jim Young said. “Everyone in the neighborhood knew who they were . . . knew where they hung out.”

Mayor Brian Ebersole backs the police but remains mystified that the boys were such an accepted part of the neighborhood.

“I think it causes all of us in the country to question what climate society is creating in which 11- and 14-year-olds feel they can behave this way,” Ebersole said. “If we had a culture where this was so unacceptable that they would be shunned by their friends . . . then they wouldn’t do it. What is it in the psyche of a society that allows kids to think this way?”

One of the answers, said Hunt’s attorney, Michael Stewart, was that no one was thinking--at least, not on his own. Stewart described an e-mail he received not long after Hunt’s arrest: One boy has a brain, it said, two boys have half a brain. Three boys or more, no brain.

“I think the prosecutors recognize that none of these defendants as individuals was dangerous,” Stewart said. “But in any group situation, particularly a group that has no leader, the worst idea seemingly becomes the idea that is acted upon. . . . No one says: ‘Wait a minute.’ ”

The boys often spent time at the home where Hunt lived with his mother, Stewart said, because he--unlike many other youths in the Hilltop neighborhood--had no involvement with gangs, guns or drugs. Hunt had worked hard at school and never got into trouble. His mother’s house, Stewart said, was thought of as a safe place: The kids would play video games or watch movies. They’d go to the mall.

But 13-year-old Desire Goldberg, a cousin of two of the boys charged--Manuel Hernandez, 12, and Robert Hernandez, 16--said Hunt was a bad influence. “He was real vulgar; perverted. He was doing things he shouldn’t be doing. You know: drugs, drinking. And if he sees a girl, he’ll just walk up to them and say stuff; insults them.”

Robert Hernandez had been staying home a lot lately, watching TV with Goldberg, not going out much with his friends. Then came the night of Aug. 19, the night Toews left his job at the Usual coffee shop, the night a friend asked if he wanted a ride home. Toews said he’d just walk.

According to police, the suspects met up that evening for a barbecue at Hunt’s house. One of the younger boys asked Hunt if he “wanted to beat someone up . . . ‘cause they were bored,” papers filed with the court said.

“They all went out to Wright Park,” Goldberg said. “I guess they wanted to get in trouble.” The Hernandez brothers, she said, told her that the others asked Hunt to leave Toews alone after the initial beating. “But Terry went back and kneed him in the face 28 times,” Goldberg said. Her cousins, she said, “didn’t mean to kill him.”

The attacks started in December, when Inger Hansen was walking home with two friends through the Hilltop neighborhood about 1:30 a.m. A group of boys--many of whom she said she recognized among the suspects arrested last week--started following them. Three of the youths jumped on the man in her group; two jumped on her girlfriend and one jumped on Hansen, who was able to run to a neighboring house for help.

“They were so young,” she said. “The fact that they didn’t take my purse--and it was spilled out all over the street--my wallet, my cell phone . . . I just know they were doing it for a thrill.”

Raymond Clark--a burly, 57-year-old former logger--said a group of youths jumped on him on the night of Aug. 11. “A kid asked me what time it was, and when I told him ‘10, 10:30,’ I noticed six or seven of them coming from the other side of the street. I turned around and caught a board on the side of the head.”

Clark said he fought back. “The oldest kid was the one that had my attention. He was the one that was doing most of the action. The rest of them seemed to get into it when I went down. The only thing I could consider was they were doing it for the fun of it.”

In all, there were eight attacks from July 26 to the night Toews was beaten. Police believe seven of them may be linked to the youths now under arrest. Most of the other injuries were minor. Very little was stolen: $45 in all, some credit cards, a bottle of soda.

Toews’ friends believe the 30-year-old died because he didn’t fight back. They said he didn’t believe in violence.

Toews had a list of 100 music albums he thought everyone should hear, friend George Abrantes said. “He just had this great love for film and reading books. He was accepting of all kinds of people. Very nonjudgmental.”

Race Likely Not a Factor

Although Toews and all but one of the other victims were white, police say there are no signs the attacks were racially motivated. Of the suspects, four are black, two are Latino and two are white.

If found guilty, the juveniles would be released at age 21. Robert Hernandez and Hunt, now charged as adults, would face sentences of 20 to 30 years.

The Hernandez brothers’ grandmother, Martha Rose, said that her boys “are not killers. . . . They don’t have any hate in their hearts.”

Hunt made the decision to turn himself in, his lawyer said, after talking it over with his mother and his pastor. “They held each other and cried for a while. . . . They prayed together for some time,” Stewart said. “Any time a kid puts his arms around his mother and he’s going into custody for what may be the rest of the mother’s life, it is heartbreaking to watch.

“And there are many tough goodbyes in this case,” Stewart said. “There are the tough goodbyes that the people who lost Erik Toews had, and they never had the opportunity to say them.”

At Thursday’s community meeting, half the 400 people crowded into the downtown theater demanded justice; the other half asked for mercy. These boys “need the Cadillac of treatment,” said Marmy Smith, a school social worker.

“Some young people have absolutely no empathy. They cannot identify with their victim. . . . But [that] does not mean they should not be held responsible for their actions,” Shirley Gordon said. “Please don’t give these kids a slap on the wrist.”

Tammy Rogers turned to the audience as she stood. “If you have children, love them responsibly and love them fiercely. Children grow up ornery for a reason. If you live on a block with children, know their names. Ask them how their day was.”