Charges: 13 Edina students slipped into YMCA and assaulted teen left with traumatic brain injury

Two teenage boys were charged Friday among the five arrested in connection with more than a dozen Edina High School students ambushing a teenager in the city’s YMCA last month and leaving him with brain injuries.

The “planned assault” occurred about 6 p.m. Dec. 20 on the basketball court at the Y in the 7300 block of York Avenue, one of the charging documents read.

Police said the 16-year-old victim showed signs of a declining mental state and memory difficulties before being hospitalized. Officials have not released his identity.

A 16-year-old boy was arrested Wednesday in Edina, police said, and three more boys were arrested Thursday: a 17-year-old and a 14-year-old in Edina, and a 16-year-old in Bloomington. On Friday, a 17-year-old was arrested in Edina.

Charged as of Friday afternoon are one teenager who was 15 at the time of the incident and another who was 16, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office said.

While prosecutors cannot release more about the charges against the 15-year-old, the juvenile petition filed against the Bloomington 16-year-old listed charges of aiding and abetting both third-degree assault and third-degree riot. It also spelled out a brief description of what went on inside the Y that night while not revealing a motive:

Police were called to the Y and learned that a staff member “let a large group of young males into the building through the rear exit door,” the petition read. The group went to the gym and assaulted a teenager there “who tried to run away.”

On Saturday, YMCA of the North spokeswoman Emily Lowther countered that “a staff member did not admit the group.”

Surveillance video captured 13 teens in all entering the building while wearing hooded sweatshirts and masks.

The victim told police that he believed everyone in the group were Edina High School students and that he could identify some of them.

He said he could not recall how long the fight lasted but thought he fell unconscious as some point.

The teen showed signs of confusion and was taken by emergency medical responders to a hospital and “diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury,” the petition noted.

The 16-year-old who was charged admitted to police that he went “to the YMCA because of the planned assault [and] admitted that he hit the victim two or three times and kicked him once.”

The charged 16-year-old appeared in court Friday afternoon and was released to his mother but put on electronic home monitoring. He’s due back in court Jan. 27.

The investigation continues, and police say that anyone with information about the incident should contact Detective Kenna Dick at 952-826-0491.

Staff writer Jeff Day contributed to this report.