Boys Sought After Police See Web Video of Vicious Beating of Tosa Boy

Two Milwaukee brothers who attend Wauwatosa schools, one 13 and one 14, were being sought for arrest on suspicion of aggravated battery after a Wauwatosa police detective recognized them viciously beating another boy in a video posted on the www.worldstarhiphop.com website.

Police contacted school officials, who watched the video and confirmed that the assailants were Wauwatosa students and recognized the site of the incident as the playground. Frank Calarco, the principal of West High School, was able to identify the victim as a West sophomore.

Police then contacted the boy's parents and interviewed the family.

The 15-year-old victim told police that he had had a run-in earlier with the 13-year-old in late June. He said he and a friend had been in the Tosa Village area and he had seen the 13-year-old hitting a girl in .

He said he had stepped between them to protect the girl, who made her escape, and then the boy had threatened to bring back his older brother to beat him up.

Weeks later, he said, he had again been in the Village with a friend and as they were walking home past Lincoln School, both the brothers, backed up by six more boys he had never seen, surrounded the victim on the playground.

He told police that first the older brother confronted him and demanded that he fight. He refused. The boy began to punch him in the face, and then told his younger brother to step forward and punch him too, which he did.

Not satisfied that his younger brother had hurt his victim, the older boy held the West student while exhorting the 13-year-old to hit him again and again.

Finally, the older boy forced the victim to his knees and then kicked him in the head with his knee. After that, the victim managed to flee, bleeding badly from the mouth.

The victim called his mother but told her he had fallen and cut his lip. He said he didn't want to tell her about being beaten up because he didn't want to worry her.

When she picked him up, she found him covered with blood and with a piece of his lip hanging loose. She took him to the hospital, where he required four stitches. His mother believes that his lip may be permanently deformed.

The detective's report said that the video, which included an audio recording of the event, corroborated everything the boy told them. The report said that the assailants were verbally abusive and profane throughout the incident, and that the victim never tried to fight back.

The report mentioned that near the end of the video an adult voice can be heard shouting from a distance, possibly trying to break up the fight. There was no mention that any adult had reported the fight at the time or had been interviewed since.

Calls to Wauwatosa School District officials were not immediately returned. The video appears to have been taken down from the site.

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Editor's note: This story has been corrected since publication to reflect that the two suspects in question at the time. Based on an erroneous police report, the first published version of the story said that they had been arrested when they had not been. The suspects and are awaiting a hearing date in Children's Court.