Teens Busted for YouTube Beat Down
YouTube catches teens in an attack on a defenseless homeless man
By TODD WRIGHT
Updated 1:18 PM EST, Wed, Oct 28, 2009
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The Internet is quickly becoming a police officer's best friend.
Broward Sheriff's Office investigators used a YouTube video from 2008 to track down three teenagers who are seen in the Web posting dragging and abusing a homeless man for no apparent reason. Police found the video while investigating another crime that was caught on camera and posted to the Internet website.
Deputies arrested Brandon Edwards and William Sleight, both 19, late Monday night and are looking for a third person who appears in the video. Police arrested Nicholas Bakum of Lighthouse Point and Bradley Wunderlich on Wednesday.
You can see part one of the attack above.
The nearly three-minute clip, titled "Beating Up a Crackhead," shows the boys slapping, pushing and dragging the man, 54-year-old James Cunningham, down a street in Pompano Beach. Sleight is recording the action on his cell phone and giving play-by-play of the beating with some vulgar color commentary sprinkled in.
In another short clip, the teens continue to terrorize Cunningham, who appears to be drunk and too frightened to run away. He never reported the assault to police.
Edwards and Sleight are still in a Broward jail and charged with kidnapping and battery.
The disturbing video adds to the infamous crimes against the homeless in South Florida that have made national attention.
In 2006, three teens were charged with murder after they went on a homeless beating spree in Fort Lauderdale and eventually beat a man to death with baseball bats. Several of the attacks were caught on surveillance cameras, which ultimately helped convict the boys.
First Published: Oct 27, 2009 1:01 PM EST
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