STATESVILLE, N.C. — A Statesville mother is demanding charges after she said her 14-year-old son was ambushed and beaten outside his home Saturday night. The attack was captured on cellphone video and home surveillance footage, which she hopes will help investigators identify those involved.
Amber Taylor said it is difficult to watch the 30-second video where her son was punched and kicked 75 times
“As a person to watch someone to be beaten like that, it’s hard enough, but as the mother of the person it happened to, knowing that he’s just a 14-year-old child, it destroyed me,” said Taylor.
She showed Channel 9’s Dave Faherty where her son was ambushed after opening the front door of their home along Hidden Lakes Road. She said when he stepped outside, as many as four adults and a half dozen kids or teens went after him. She said they had come to her home looking for a friend of her son, but attacked him instead.
“They started yelling at my son and my son said he didn’t know where he was,” Taylor said. “And then a 19-year-old woman approached, reared her fist back, and hit him in the nose, busting it wide open.”
Taylor said she has taken out a restraining order against one of the adults who showed up at her home. She believes the adults who participated in the attack should be charged with felonies.
She told her son to keep his head high.
“That he did nothing wrong and that he was a victim,” she said. “When that person hit him, I feel like my son should have defended himself, and when I asked him why he didn’t, he said ‘Mom, I can’t hit a girl.’”
She believes the adults who brought the kids to the house and didn’t intervene should face charges. The police chief in Statesville is aware of the incident.
No charges have been filed.