MILWAUKEE (AP) - A prosecutor began reviewing possible charges Thursday against five juveniles in the brutal mob beating of a man yanked from his car while driving through a north side neighborhood. Two are 17 years old, two are 16 and one is 14, according to a police statement that did not give the genders of the suspects in the attack on Samuel McClain, a 50-year-old father of 12. Police continue to seek more suspects, the release said.
"We're talking to a lot of people to try to get to the bottom of what happened," said police department spokeswoman Anne E. Schwartz.
"We're getting some tips," she added, but declined to be specific.
Thomas Potter, a Milwaukee County assistant district attorney, was handling the case.
"I'm going to be talking to a lot of people over the next day and a half," Potter said, estimating he would likely interview more than a dozen witnesses.
A group of as many as 15 youths punched, kicked and jumped on McClain after he honked for them to move out of the street Monday night, witnesses said.
McClain was in satisfactory condition Thursday at Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital in suburban Wauwatosa, just three days after he arrived there, unable to breathe on his own.
Karen Brasel, a trauma surgeon and critical care specialist at Froedtert, said McClain was essentially in a coma after he was brought to the hospital.
He was "very lucky to be alive," Brasel said.
McClain's wife, Linda Johnson, called on the community to stop the violence and for parents to control their children.
"It's just senseless," Johnson said in a statement released Wednesday by Froedtert. "If people could see him now compared to how he looked before, they'd be shocked."
The hospital also released a photo of McClain that shows him in a hospital bed with a bruised and swollen face.
Johnson said her husband was a good father who wouldn't have done anything to start the beating.
The attack on McClain in Milwaukee's inner city was the latest in a string of mob beatings since 2002.
"I thought that the last time this happened in our community that people would wake up," Johnson said. "It's time for this to stop. Parents need to sit down and talk with their children about what's right and what's wrong."
State Rep. Leon Young, D-Milwaukee, said he plans to introduce a bill in the Legislature early next year that would toughen the penalties for those participating in group assaults. Young, a former Milwaukee police officer, started working with the department after several 2004 mob beatings.
The penalty enhancer would kick in when three or more people take part in violence against a person and would range from one extra year in prison to five, depending on the severity of the victim's injuries.
Locally, a group of City Council members said Thursday they will introduce an anti-gang ordinance that would allow police to ticket groups of people who loiter in a menacing fashion.
The aldermen said they want to give police a tool to break up groups of people who slow or stop traffic. Police have said they have little leeway in such cases, relying instead on anti-loitering ordinances.
Milwaukee's inner city had a string of mob beatings last year, but the most famous case was that of Charlie Young, who was beaten to death by more than a dozen mostly young boys with shovel handles, rakes and tree limbs in September 2002.
Then on July 4, 2004, 54-year-old David Rutledge, a schizophrenic, was robbed and beaten and later died. Six teens were charged. One has been convicted, four had charges dropped when their confessions were ruled inadmissible and one is awaiting trial.
Four days after Rutledge's attack, a 14-year-old boy was kicked, punched and hit in the head with a piece of lumber after he exchanged words with a girl on a playground. She summoned older relatives, who allegedly beat the boy.
Two weeks after that, a Milwaukee man was beaten by a group of men after a girl in the neighborhood falsely accused him of indecently touching her.
And on July 29, 2004, a 16-year-old boy and his three brothers were beaten by a group armed with bats, bottles, sticks and socks stuffed with canned food, after someone with the victims called someone a derogatory term.
