"They were trying to kill me": Teens brutally beat woman and co-worker in Dedham

DEDHAM - "They were trying to kill me," said a woman who wants to remain anonymous after she was brutally attacked outside the Horse Thieves Tavern in Dedham Saturday night.

It started with a thump on the window right at closing time, around 11:30pm. The employee went outside to see what was going on. "I said just come away from the window. You guys are banging through the window hard. And the girl yelled to me. 'What did you say white woman?' And I turned to walk in, and something or someone knocked me out."

It happened right across from the Dedham Police Department. Police say the group of young teenage girls had been fighting at a nearby bus stop next to the tavern. In retrospect, that employee wishes she never went outside.

"I woke up on the ground. I was just surrounded by people kicking me and smashing at my head. They were stomping. Someone else put their hands, one of my staff, over my face to protect me, and they told them they were killing me and to stop, and so they dragged her by her hair on the sidewalk, and they beat us separately."

The traumatic account prompted the owner of the building, Peter Reynolds, to have new security cameras installed outside. "There is more good than bad in this world," he said, reading aloud a message on a poster he had created.

Ironically, he is also an author of children's books urging peace and non-violence. "I'm hoping that this brings some attention to the really great need out there to make sure that all of our kids are being well taken care of," he said. "How do we improve policy and funding to help the children in our community?"

It happened on the heels of a string of incidents involving teenagers vandalizing and attacking people in Boston in recent weeks. Dedham Police say there have also been recent problems with teens fighting at the Dedham Mall.

The victim in this case wishes she had known about the other incidents and had been warned before she got involved.