Plains Park in Danvers, Massachusetts.
Prosecutors announced indictments against four teenagers more than a month after an attack on a person with a disability near a middle school in Danvers, Massachusetts.
The Essex County District Attorney's Office announced Tuesday that four people — two 15-year-old Danvers residents, a 14-year-old from Danvers and a 15-year-old from Lawrence — had been indicted by a grand jury Monday.
Prosecutors released the defendants' names, but NBC10 Boston is withholding them because they are minors.
Authorities said last month that a 15-year-old had been arrested, but he was not named at the time, and it was not immediately clear he was among those indicted this week.
Police previously acknowledged investigating an attack on a beloved Danvers resident, Chris Anderson, known around town as "Ducky." He had to be transported to Beverly Hospital to his injuries.
Danvers police responded to the area of Holten Richmond Middle School on Saturday, Oct. 12, finding Anderson with two fractured ribs, according to prosecutors. Investigators determined he had been lured into the woods near Plains Park, where six juveniles attacked him, kicking him and throwing a bike onto him.
"I'm so proud of the police what they did," he said last month.
"I would like to thank Chris Anderson, his family, and our entire community for their unwavering support, patience and understanding during this challenging process, which has been truly commendable," Danvers Police Chief Jamie Lovell said Tuesday in a statement shared by the district attorney's office.
Ducky's mother, Antoinette Anderson, told NBC10 Boston in October that the care and concern the community has shown in the following days that has made this bearable.
"I cannot believe how well they have treated him," she said.
At a heated Select Board meeting, locals said they've been scared to walk around the town because of a group of teenagers that hangs out in the Plains Park area that's been riding bikes out into traffic and spitting at, throwing rocks at and threatening people.
Anderson himself spoke at the meeting, saying, "I was really, really afraid of them always, and in my life, I was scared to death of those kids."
Many people said they wanted the town and police to do more to stop the group, especially when something so violent happened to someone so well known in the community.
