The Question Is Why?
By: Tommy “Tj” Sotomayor

CROWN HEIGHTS, Brooklyn — Police have charged five teenage boys in connection with a brutal gang assault and robbery that was caught on camera in Brooklyn.

The shocking incident happened Thursday at 4:10 p.m. on Utica Avenue in Crown Heights.

The disturbing video showed a group of teenage boys pounce on a 15-year-old girl. They punched and kicked her over and over until she was unconscious.

The video also showed one of the boys stealing her Air Jordan sneakers, phone, and wallet in the attack.

The NYPD says that five boys, ranging in age from 14 to 17 years old, turned themselves in at the 77th precinct.

All five were charged as minors with robbery and assault. Their fate will be decided in Family Court.

The victim’s grandmother and local activists rallied together Saturday condemning the assault on the girl from Brooklyn.

“My granddaughter, her spirits are broke, mine is broke,” Pamela, the victim’s grandmother, said. “All I think about is the boy, Lesandro Guzman Felix, 15, who got killed in the Bronx, and I thought, please don’t let nothing happen to my baby.”

Tony Herbert, a community advocate, has spoken with the mother of one of the teenagers who is charged in this crime. That mother is apologizing to the victim’s family and says she is also willing to purchase new Air Jordans for the victim.

The girl was taken to a hospital for bruising and trauma. She is expected to recover.

The mother of the one of the teens charged in the caught-on-camera beatdown of a 15-year-old Brooklyn girl defended her son as a good kid Saturday — but admitted she was furious with him.

“When I saw the video I literally wanted to kill him with my own hands,” said Donna Howell, 42, while waiting for her son’s arraignment in Brooklyn Criminal Court. “I was very, very pissed off.”AdvertisementPauseUnmuteLoaded: 0%Progress: 0%Remaining Time-0:47Fullscreen

Howell’s 14-year-old is one of five teens between the ages of 14 and 17 who were charged with robbery and gang assault after turning themselves in at the 77th Precinct stationhouse Friday night.

“He didn’t want to go at first and I said, ‘No you’re going to go, you’re going to turn yourself in,’” she recalled. Howell then left the house to run an errand, and found her son gone when she came back.

“He had just walked and turned himself in [to police],” she said.[More New York] Ex-con busted in fatal NYC subway stabbing of aspiring designer »

Four of five suspects who turned themselves in were arraigned in Brooklyn Criminal Court on Saturday night — all of them accompanied by their mothers. The Daily News is withholding their names because of their ages.

Judge Deepa Ambekar denied prosecutors’ request for $10,000 bail on each suspect, and instead released the boys on their own recognizance.

However, Ambekar imposed curfews on each suspect, and ordered them to stay away from the victim.

None of the suspects knew the victim, lawyers said during the arraignment hearings. Fourteen more suspects are sought in the attack.

Surveillance video of the assault sparked condemnation from elected officials.

“I have never seen in my lifetime this kind of incident where young men perpetrate this kind of violence on an innocent woman,” City Councilman Robert Cornegy (D-Brooklyn) said Saturday. “I remember growing up under mob mentality in Brooklyn. There were still rules and the rules said that women were untouchable.”[More New York] Driver who tried to flee scene after striking a cyclist was chased down and held by good Samaritans »

The video shows the 15-year-old girl being chased to the corner of Utica Ave. and Sterling Place on Thursday afternoon before being knocked to the ground. A horde of teens then descend upon her, repeatedly kicking and punching the victim as she curls up to avoid the blows, the video shows.

The attackers stole the girl’s sneakers, cell phone and a debit card before scattering.

The victim’s neighbors describe her as a quiet girl who lives with her mother and sister.

“She doesn’t get in trouble, she doesn’t deserve that,” said 13-year-old neighbor Jacob Black. “She’s a basketball player, that’s all she does.”

“She goes to school and comes home. She’s quiet,” said a next-door neighbor who declined to share her name. “Those were animals. I can’t see how those young boys did that to her.”RELATED GALLERY

(Gardiner Anderson/for New York Daily News)1 / 171

Violent crimes occur in New York

Howell said her son, the middle child of three boys, has had little interaction with police and she was shocked to hear of his alleged involvement.

“I don’t know what else I can say to them [the victim’s parents] except I’m so sorry, I feel very bad for her,” she said. “I’m a woman, and if he had a sister he would never want anyone to treat her like that.”[More New York] Suffolk DA to open special grand jury into murder of 8-year-old Thomas Valva »