Two teenage boys who attacked a Black 18-year-old man with punches and racial slurs in a Simi Valley parking lot over the summer have admitted to committing a hate crime and felony assault, the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office announced.
The attack occurred on August 1 and was captured on video. The footage shows the victim, Michael Robinson, being swarmed by a group of teenage boys in a Regal Cinemas parking lot around 11 p.m. The teens pummeled Robinson with punches and racial slurs as he tried to escape.
Earlier this month, Ventura County prosecutors charged five boys in connection with the attack. All were aged 16 or 17 and included one boy who is the son of a Simi Valley police sergeant. Three of the teens faced felony assault charges along with special allegations of a hate crime, prosecutors said. A fourth was charged with felony assault, misdemeanor battery, and misdemeanor criminal threats, while the fifth was charged with misdemeanor threats and misdemeanor battery. Their names have not been released due to their status as minors.
On Thursday, two of the boys admitted to their charges and are scheduled to be sentenced next month. The remaining defendants are set to be arraigned in mid-November.
Video footage of the attack shows a group of boys punching Robinson while repeatedly using the N-word as they chased him around the parking lot. Officials confirmed that two other people were also injured during the incident.
Following the attack, Robinson spoke to Fox 11 Los Angeles, revealing that the group initially targeted his friends before turning their aggression on him. The teens slammed Robinson into a car, pushed his head into a trash can, and punched him in the back of the head. “Honestly, I thought I was going to die,” Robinson said.
Simi Valley Police Department spokesperson Ryan Morton clarified that the sergeant whose son was charged is not involved in the ongoing investigation.
According to Robinson’s guardian, Brittany Martin, the attack stemmed from a previous altercation between the same groups of teens. “He [Robinson] was hunted down, and it was very disgusting,” Martin told Fox 11. “This is not the first time that these kids are actually doing this.”
While the date of the earlier incident was not immediately known, one of the teens who admitted to the hate crime also admitted to making criminal threats during an incident on May 30 at the same location. Another teen from the group is also being prosecuted in connection with that May 30 incident.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-10-31/simi-valley-teen-hate-crime-admission
