Trick-Or-Treaters Assaulted, Robbed By Halloween Thugs

After almost three hours of collecting candy, 13-year-old Daniel Smith wandered home Halloween night with a full sack.

He was just two doors from his home on 32nd Avenue when a group of older boys piled out of three cars and attacked him.

Smith was one of five Spokane Valley youths roughed up by candy thieves while trick-or-treating Tuesday night. All five had their sacks of candy swiped.

Sheriff’s deputies do not believe the attacks are related.

“This whole gang thing is getting out of hand,” said Smith’s father, Dan. “It was a gang (that attacked Daniel). It was six, seven, eight kids hanging out being bullies. I don’t know what else a gang is.”

One of the teenagers shoved Smith, who was dressed as the ghost of Jimi Hendrix, to the ground. When he tried to fight back, the teen punched Smith in the mouth.

Smith was lucky, his father said, even though the attack left Daniel with a fat lip and no candy.

In the most serious Halloween attack, a 13-year-old boy was held by an older teenager while another teen slugged him in the face several times.

The boy suffered injuries to his eye, a possibly broken nose and had a tooth knocked loose. He was treated at Valley Hospital and Medical Center and released.

The boy told deputies he was trick-or-treating with two friends when two older teens confronted them near Evergreen and Valleyway.

A second boy was hit in the back of the head during the attack. He and the third boy managed to run away from the beating.

Deputies arrested a 16-year-old following that attack and charged him with first-degree robbery.

In three other incidents, teenage candy thieves slugged trick-or-treaters in the face before stealing their candy.

“It’s hard to understand what satisfaction you get from beating up a little kid and taking his candy,” said Sheriff’s Lt. David Wiyrick, adding that he couldn’t recall similar reports of violence surrounding trick-or-treating.

If caught, the teens will be charged with robbery, a felony, instead of simple assault, a misdemeanor, Wiyrick said.

Though Dan Smith was not overly optimistic his son’s attackers would be caught, he applauded the severity of the charge.

“They stole more than his candy that night,” Smith said. “They stole his courage to walk in his own neighborhood at night.”

, DataTimes