Violent beating by gang of teenage boys under investigation

Jul. 24—A Waynesville mom is searching for answers after her two boys were violently dragged from their vehicle and beaten by a mob of teenagers.

"It breaks my heart," said Danielle Burnell, who has relived the terror her boys went through again and again from cell phone videos of the beating.

Her boys — age 14 and 18 — were attacked by a mob of around 10 other teenage boys in the the Waynesville Rec park around 10 p.m. Monday.

The pack of teenagers rushed her boys' truck and surrounded them. They punched them through the windows, climbed into the truck and pounded on them, forcibly dragged them from the truck and beat them while they were on the ground. The attackers took turns delivering the blows, sometimes two and three at a time hitting the boys as they covered their heads with their hands.

"They'd never seen any of them before," Burnell said. "When I picked them up, they said 'Momma we couldn't do nothing. There were too many of them.' They had both thrown up everywhere. They were in shock, about to pass out."

She rushed the boys to the emergency room.

"My oldest couldn't drive because his leg was broken," Burnell said.

Another 14-year-old boy who'd also been beaten up was with them and was in even worse shape.

"He was beat up pretty bad," she said.

But since Burnell wasn't his guardian, she couldn't get him treated. It was unclear who the boy's caretakers were or where he was living.

When Burnell finally got home from the hospital around 7 a.m., her youngest — who's 11 — had locked all the doors, which was unusual for the family.

"He was scared they were going to come here," she said.

How it unfolded

On Monday night, her boys were on the way home from visiting their dad in north Georgia when her 14-year-old got a call from a friend asking if they could pick him up from the Waynesville Rec Center.

The boy asking for a ride had apparently been involved in an altercation with the pack of teenagers before they arrived. When they picked the boy up from the Rec Center, he got a call from one of the other boys on the other side of the rec park by the children's playground.

"They said 'You left your jacket in the truck, why don't you come over here and get it?'" Burnell said. "That's when they ambushed them."

The boys' truck was surrounded when they pulled into the children's playground, down the side street leading to the apartments at the former BI-LO site.

"When they were charging at their truck, one of my boys said 'Back up, back up,' but they kept running up to the truck and hit him through the window," Burnell said. "My oldest son gets out and puts his hand up like 'I don't want no problems,' but they attacked him anyway."

Mayhem ensued for about two minutes, according to cell phone footage captured by bystanders who were with the group of attackers. The mob surrounded each of the three boys, sometimes three and four on one.

The three boys attempted to throw swings to keep the attackers back, but they were outnumbered.

A few times in the video, some of the boys beating up the others are heard shouting "What did you say about his momma?"

"And you can hear my boys the whole time saying 'It's not us, it's not us,'" Burnell said.

The oldest had his ankle broken early on and was lying on the ground while taking blows. The two 14-year-olds managed to clamber back in the truck, but the other boys go in after them.

One boy cowers in the back seat while taking repeated blows. The other is being pummeled through the window of the passenger seat. He tries to hold the door closed, but the attackers eventually force it open it, punching him and dragging him out onto the ground. As he holds his hands over his head, three boys take turns wailing on him, sometimes two at once, despite being much bigger than the 14 year old.

He's only saved when one of the boys in the mob comes over and pulls the other boys off and tells them to quit. That same boy helps the 14-year-old off the ground and back into the truck and shuts the door.

The group of teenagers then leave, with Burnell's 18-year-old still lying on the ground behind the truck.

Investigation

By Tuesday mid-day, cell phone footage of the incident had begun making the rounds among kids on social media. Burnell ended up getting her hands on a couple of videos and posted them to her own FaceBook page.

"I posted it because I wanted to know who they were. I asked if anyone could identify them. Once people started seeing it, they began sending me names," she said.

She was even sent screenshots of posts made by some of the boys bragging about it, she said.

Burnell's 18-year-old lives with his dad in Georgia and didn't attend school in Haywood County. However, the two 14-year-old boys just finished eighth grade at Waynesville Middle and would be going to Tuscola next year. Burnell said she believes most of the other boys go to Pisgah based on names she was provided when trying to identify them.

She eventually took the videos down because she was afraid of blowback for her sons. On Wednesday, wanting to get her sons away from the trauma, she took them to Fontana Village for a one-night vacation.

"My boys woke me up in the middle of the night because apparently I was screaming 'help' in my sleep," she said.

The incident is currently under investigation by the Waynesville Police Department.

Burnell said she called police Monday night on the way to the hospital to report the incident. On Tuesday, she provided officers with the cell phone videos she acquired, along with the names she'd collected of some of the boys allegedly involved.

Detectives also pulled surveillance footage from outdoor cameras at the rec park, in hopes they would provide better quality than the cell phone videos, according to Waynesville Assistant Police Chief Brandon Gilmore.

The teenagers involved in the incident are likely minors, so any charges that materialize would have their names redacted.

Burnell, who moved here from Blue Ridge, Georgia, four years ago with her two youngest boys, doesn't know what to do now.

"The saddest part is we go to the rec park all the time because my boys love to skate," she said. Now, she doesn't know if they'll want to.

And she doesn't know if she even wants to stay here for her son's sake.

"If I can get up enough money, I might relocate back. I don't know if I want him to go to school here after this," she said.