John Anderson, known around Danvers as “Ducky,” said he was attacked by a group of teens in Plains Park.
A teenage boy has been arrested in an attack on a person with a disability near a Danvers, Massachusetts, middle school, police said Friday.
The 15-year-old, whose name wasn't shared, was arrested about 1:30 p.m. Friday over the attack six days earlier in the area of Holten Richmond Middle School and Plains Park, Danvers police said.
He faces charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, assault and battery to intimidate based on a disability and assault and battery on a person with an intellectual disability, according to police.
Police didn't share more information about the attack, citing the integrity of the investigation and the fact that juveniles were involved, but noted that they still investigating and were working with the Essex County District Attorney's Office. They didn't say if more people were suspected of being involved in the attack.
Police previously acknowledged investigating an attack Saturday on a beloved Danvers resident, Chris Anderson, on Saturday.
Anderson, known around town as "Ducky," had to be transported to Beverly Hospital to his injuries.
"I'm so proud of the police what they did," he said Friday.
Ducky's mother, Antoinette Anderson, says 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 Tuesday night, 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.
