Teens Arrested Over Viral Video Showing Them Assaulting 69-Year-Old Man

Teens Arrested Over Viral Video Showing Them Assaulting 69-Year-Old Man
A police car in a file photo. (Mira Oberman/AFP/Getty Images)
Zachary Stieber
2/14/2019
Updated:
2/14/2019

A viral video shows California teenagers assaulting a 69-year-old man, knocking him unconscious, prompting police officers to arrest the five teens.

The footage was captured outside a McDonald’s in Cupertino.

Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office deputies said that the man was riding in a car when he saw the teens in the crosswalk playing around and told them to cut it out because they could get hurt.

That’s when one of the teens spit on him and, moments later, an altercation started.

By the time Santa Clara deputies arrived, everyone was gone. Hospital workers soon called to report that a man in his 60s had arrived with fresh face wounds, described as nonlife-threatening, reported the San Jose Mercury News.
“Someone is essentially being attacked, that is the age of their grandfather,” Reginald Cooks from the sheriff’s office told NBC. “Someone who was initially reaching out to them because he was probably concerned for their well-being.”

Administrators from Homestead High School helped identify the five teens in the video and footage of them being walked off campus on Feb. 13 showed them in handcuffs.

The teens were not identified by name or age because they are minors.

Another video shows the man holding one of the students and was circulated by the father of one of the teens, who claimed that the elderly man was partly responsible for the fight.

“It’s still an open investigation so anyone with any video we ask that they come forward and give it to the Sheriff’s Office,” Cooks said. Anyone with information can call the sheriff’s detective line at (408) 808-4500.

Video Shows Teens Fighting With Mother

Video footage shows teenage girls throwing objects at McDonald’s employees after they were asked to leave a children’s play area.

Police officials said the girls caused thousands of dollars in damages.

“I was about to get hit in the head. They were throwing them pretty high too, like they had no aim,” Dexter Forbes Jr., a McDonald’s employee who was working at the time, told CBS LA.

The McDonald’s where the fight went down in January is located in Moreno Valley.

A mother who declined to be identified said that the situation started when she asked the teens to leave the play area where her daughters were playing.

Warning: Video contains graphic language.

The teens refused and started chucking cups of water and ice at the family.

“They kept wanting to fight me, they all started hitting me and my two little girls were crying,” the woman told NBC LA. “My dad realized that they were on me and he pulled me away.”

The grandfather then chased the group out of the play area and grabbed one of the girls while calling 911.

Finally, a man in a black sweater, a manager at the store, intervened and came between the mother and the teens. The manager also called the police. He was later reportedly suspended then fired.

Video footage showed teens throwing drinks, shoving items off the counter, and throwing cups. Some of the employees threw things back at the girls.

Forbes Jr., who also posted footage on Twitter, referred to what happened as “a food fight.”