Cops: 3 Kids Beat Man With Cinder Block

Two 10-year-old boys and an older teen characterized as a ringleader were charged with beating a homeless man and smashing a concrete block into his face, leaving him bruised and bloody with broken bones.

The three, charged with aggravated battery, face a hearing next week to determine if they should remain in juvenile detention. At their first court appearance, the two younger boys were escorted from jail in oversized white jumpsuits, their hands chained in front of them and their legs in shackles.

From a hospital bed Friday, John D'Amico, 57, a homeless man who worked as a day laborer, described what happened to him Tuesday night and criticized the boys.

"Oh yeah, they were trying to kill me," D'Amico told CBS affiliate WKMG correspondent Tarik Minor. "Somebody throws a cinder block and wants to do it again, they're trying to kill you."

He said the kids tried to slam another cinder block on his face but police broke up the attack.

"They are dangerous," D'Amico told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "The street doesn't need them. They need to be somewhere."

The youngsters are charged with aggravated battery; Daytona Beach police have not released the younger boys' names; they are reviewing evidence to decide whether the three will be charged as adults.

"For a 10-year-old to pick up a cinder block and smash somebody's face with it, that defies logic," police Chief Michael Chitwood told The Daytona Beach News-Journal on Thursday. He said the court system needs to take a close look at the children's backgrounds and families.

Neighbors say they come from troubled homes; Minor reported that not one of their parents showed up in court on their behalf.

D'Amico said he was walking with a friend through a Daytona Beach neighborhood just before 9 p.m. Tuesday when the trio on bicycles started throwing sand and small rocks at them. Then they got off their bikes and started throwing larger rocks, he said.

D'Amico said he fell into a wall after the 17-year-old punched him in the face, breaking the brick wall. One of the 10-year-olds then slammed a piece of the broken wall onto his face, he said.

"They were big kids for their age," D'Amico told the AP. "The little kid was taunting me. The big kid came over and just slugged me. If they just would have let me walk on, I would have walked on."

D'Amico has had reconstructive surgery on his face since the attack. He said he didn't think he was targeted simply for being homeless.

"I don't look that homeless. I'm not really dirty, slobby homeless," he said. "I'm familiar in the neighborhood. I don't know these kids, never seen them before."

D'Amico is now concerned about what will happened to him once he is released from the hospital. "When I'm back in the neighborhood, I have to worry about some kind of retaliation," he told WKMG. "Because I'm sure in a 10-year-old's mind somehow it's my fault."

A Department of Children & Families spokeswoman said she could not comment on whether the agency is investigating a lack of parental supervision in the case. A police report shows the parents were notified of the boys' arrests.

It was not immediately clear if the boys had attorneys. A message left with the public defender's office was not immediately returned Friday.