MILWAUKEE, Oct. 3 (UPI) -- Prosecutors Thursday charged seven juveniles as adults with first-degree reckless homicide in last weekend's savage mob beating that killed a 36-year-old man in a drug-plagued neighborhood.
A 10-year-old boy who reportedly admitted hitting Charlie Young Jr. at least four times with a tree limb was charged with second-degree reckless homicide, and will be tried in juvenile court.
Police said two other youths not charged Thursday afternoon were being detained and questioned and three other suspects were being sought.
Young, an ex-con with four prior convictions, was declared brain dead and died Monday after life support was removed. He never regained consciousness after being pummeled by up to 16 boys and teenagers with bats, shovels, folding chairs, sticks, feet, a mop handle and a crate.
Paramedics found his near lifeless body on the front porch of a duplex in the inner city Johnsons Park neighborhood on Milwaukee's tough north side.
The father of the 10-year-old told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Young was murdered by a 32-year-old man who bragged about whacking Young's head with a pole.
Young was 6-foot-2 and weighed 200 pounds.
Police have not said whether an adult was wanted in the slaying that created international furor.
"They're making a butcher out of a 10-year-old boy and a group of boys," the father said outside Milwaukee County Children's Court.
Police said the incident began about 10:30 p.m. Sunday night when a 13-year-old nicknamed "Bump" tossed an egg hitting Young on the shoulder.
Witnesses said Young, who did not live in the area, knocked the teen to the pavement, kicked him and punched a 14-year-old who intervened in the mouth, knocking out a tooth.
Young may have been armed with a knife or box cutter, witness reports said. The children's mob reportedly chased him for more than a half hour, dragging from an apartment onto a blood-splattered porch where police and firefighters found him.
