The New York Post story correctly identifies the victims as Marines and shows pictures. It also mentions a racial slur used by an attacker.

New York Post

Horrific video shows nearly 40 teens viciously attacking off-duty Marines on Calif. beach

"We told them we were Marines so they would leave - but they didn't. They just kept going at it," said one of the overwhelmed servicemen, who fears a concussion from being &...

Read more from New York Post

The CBS story which is the only mainstream media source I could find, gives a much abridge version and opens by saying “wild video” shows… as if it were nothing more than a student. Then at the end it says LE is confirming whether the victims were Marines.  The previous story actually interviewed one of the injured men and gives his name and picture.  The men are fortunate they were not severely injured or killed. They declined to press charges.  The first story correctly describes why the Marine confronted the groups after debris from a firework hit one of them in the face. The Marine went after a teen after being sucker punched. Do we want to assume if the attackers are caught it will be spin that mean adults attacked a harmless teenager?

www.cbsnews.com

Wild video shows group of teenagers attacking Marines in San Clemente

The Marines say they were walking near the beach when they were surrounded and confronted by a group of more than 15 teens. No serious injuries were suffered.

John Oliver did a deep dive on this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCOnGjvYKI0&t=101s&ab_channel=LastWeekTonight

I live in a high crime city, with a very high proportion of offenders being indigenous people, they are always in the news, sometimes it's a case of the people who commit the crimes are the people who commit the crimes, the issue I have is people drawing a significantly different conclusion from the news, stating that most, if not all indigenous people are criminals, which is obviously not correct.

Oh thanks, I’ll watch it later when I have time. I’m actually listening to something else right now while I read the forum.

I've read the stories reported here and this one: California teen mob allegedly attacks Marines on video | Fox News

But I find several strange and unexplainable things which are not mentioned in any of the news I've read.

1. How many casualties were there? All the reports say 10 ~ 40 people in the mob against 3 Marines.

When I was in the Navy 1977-1980, we had 18 Marines onboard my ship. What I can say about those Marines on my ship is that they were all bad a$$... you didn't want to mess with them. They are trained in all kinds of combat including hand to hand combat. That said, if the Marines I knew were sucker punched from behind and then a mob attempted to attack them all, there would have been 18 ~ 25 "other" (non Marine) casualties (i.e. broken necks, broken noses, broken ribs, broken arms or legs, etc.) of many were were directly attacking them.

And anybody who wants to say 40 on 3 is impossible, each of those Marines would have taken out at least 6 or more of the mob. The remainder of the mob would have realized that they are no match and thus probably immediately fled the scene or killed the Marines.

All of the Marines are alive and I see no reports of casualties among the mob so what really happened?

Have our Marines of today become that weak? Were there any other casualties of those in the mob? There isn't much information on these things.

Finally, and the one that puzzles me the most is the story from the article I quoted above as follows:

>>>A pair of bystanders intervened in the beating, with one woman putting herself between the victims and their assailants as she outstretched her arms and yelled "Stop!"<<<

3 Marines cannot stop the fight but 2 women can? Sorry... but I find that toooooooooooooooooo hard to believe!

Again, I ask, have our Marines really become that weak?

FWIW

Because there were so many, the group were able to get them off their feet, then the Marines could not fight back.  I suspect they also didn’t want to hurt the teens, just to be left alone so they didn’t use their full might intentionally.  I doubt Marines are weaker but had they killed or seriously hurt a teenager, they would go to prison.  As it turns out five teens were arrested and will be prosecuted by the DA even though the a marines did not press charges. The video gives them a case.

Fox has the most detailed article about the beating and arrests. Although they are juveniles, so they won’t get serious sentences unless they are charged as adults.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/nine-juveniles-charged-five-custody-california-beating-us-marines-mayor

All the mainstream media finally picked up on the story now that it’s national news, but their articles are short and somewhat milder.

Showtalk said...

I suspect they also didn’t want to hurt the teens, just to be left alone so they didn’t use their full might intentionally

That's one possibility. 

Showtalk said...

As it turns out five teens were arrested and will be prosecuted by the DA even though the a marines did not press charges. The video gives them a case.

Actually, it was 9 teens, not 5: Marines attacked: At least 9 teens arrested in connection with beating of 3 Marines in San Clemente - ABC7 Los Angeles

FWIW

5 committed felony assault. 4 were more minor.