A mother has identified her son as the teenager who was left with numerous injuries after being ambushed by a group of fellow Edina High School students in the city’s YMCA last month.
Abeba Guche said son Elroi Beyene, 16, suffered brain injuries, a cut below one eye, bruises and several other injuries from the Dec. 20 attack at the Y in the 7300 block of York Avenue S.
“Three weeks later, he is still struggling physically and mentally,” Guche wrote for an online fundraising campaign that she started over the weekend as the medical bills mounted.
“I am a single mom, and Elroi was working part time and is now unable to work under the doctor orders,” she noted. “I have had to cut my hours in order to care for him and take him to follow-up appointments.”
Two teenage boys were charged Friday among the six arrested in connection with the “planned assault” that occurred about 6 p.m. on the basketball court, one of the charging documents read.
Police said Beyene showed signs of a declining mental state and memory difficulties before being hospitalized.
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. A sixth suspect, 17, turned himself at the Edina Police Department on Saturday, police said.
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.