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Teens to be charged in beatings

Two teens suspected of beating several homeless men, one fatally, turned themselves in to police.

FORT LAUDERDALE - Two teens suspected of being involved in the beatings of three homeless men turned themselves in to police on Sunday, officials said.

Family attorneys negotiated the surrender of Brian Hooks, 18, and Thomas S. Daugherty, 17, who will face murder charges in the death of Norris Gaynor and aggravated battery charges in the videotaped beating of Jacques Pierre, said police Capt. Michael Gregory.

They are also suspects in the beating of a third man, Raymond Perez, 49, whose case remains under investigation, Gregory said.

Daugherty and Hooks turned themselves in and invoked the right to remain silent. They were in custody at the Fort Lauderdale Police Department pending official charges from a grand jury, Gregory said.

Gregory said police were investigating whether the two teens were involved in other beatings and if they had accomplices.

The attack on Pierre, 58, took place on the Fort Lauderdale campus of Florida Atlantic University on Thursday. The video and still pictures taken from it were broadcast and published nationally, bringing into sharp focus the problem of homeless beating.

Gaynor, 45, was killed a few blocks away in a beating later Thursday, preceding the attack on Perez in a church garden.

It was not immediately clear if Perez and Pierre remained hospitalized Sunday. Gregory said he thought the men were still at Broward Regional Medical Center, but a hospital official refused to confirm if they were there.

The National Coalition for the Homeless, which has published an annual report on attacks that appear directed at homeless people simply because they are homeless, found that the number has risen from 60 in 1999 to 105, including 25 deaths, in 2004. The majority of attackers were young men between the ages of 16 and 25.

[Last modified January 16, 2006, 00:40:11]