Following an alleged attack in Simi Valley on Michael Robinson, 18, on Oct. 10, two teenagers charged with felony assault and hate crime allegations in connection to the incident have been detained at Ventura County Juvenile Facilities. The detention comes after an Oct. 15 court ruling. The teenagers are accused of assaulting Robinson at the Regal Cinema theater parking lot on Tapo Canyon Road on Aug. 1. According to the Los Angeles Times, “[Robinson] suffered a concussion and chipped teeth after being attacked by several teens.”
The attack was caught on camera, with the video showing the accused teenagers hitting and yelling racial slurs at Robinson, who is Black, and two other victims who have not been named. According to the LA Times, “the group first targeted his friends and then turned on him, slamming him into the hood of a car, pushing his head into a trash can and repeatedly punching him in the back of the head.”
Three of the teenagers face assault charges, a fourth faces charges for felony assault, and the fifth is also charged with misdemeanor battery and criminal threats. According to defense attorney Erik Nasarenko, “The assault was accompanied by specific words, racial slurs. So when you are allegedly stomping, kicking and punching somebody, and that’s accompanied by racial animus or hatred, that elevates the case to a hate crime.”
These charges came after four of the teenagers turned themselves in to authorities on Aug. 3. Following this, three of the juveniles involved were first cited and released, along with two more individuals now facing lesser charges that have not been named but stem from the incident, according to ABC7.
In the aftermath of this attack, some Simi Valley residents spoke at the Simi Valley City Council meeting on Aug. 18, expressing community outrage and demanding that the accused face stronger repercussions than the initial citations.
Austin Malna, a Simi Valley resident, spoke at the city council meeting in front of the Simi Valley council members. “Speaking to the council was important because I felt that Black students’ voices need to be heard, especially in the face of injustice like what happened [to Robinson],” Malna said. Malna hopes that with this arrest, there will be more attention paid to what he perceives as racial tension within the city and there can be meaningful change in attitudes.
The judge, Kevin DeNoce, made the decision to detain the two teenagers at a juvenile facility rather than at-home electronic monitoring based on both the gravity of the offense and the probation agency’s report, according to the Ventura County Star. The two teenagers remain in custody as they await their trial scheduled for Nov. 3, with pre-trial hearings scheduled for Oct. 29.