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15-year-old beats sleeping man to death with baseball bat, California police say

Officers searching the area found and identified a 15-year-old boy as a suspect in the attack, the Redding Police Department said.
Officers searching the area found and identified a 15-year-old boy as a suspect in the attack, the Redding Police Department said. Getty Images/iStock photo

A 15-year-old boy was arrested after he was accused of beating a sleeping man to death with a baseball bat, California police say.

A security guard was patrolling a commercial property in Redding shortly before 6 a.m. on Monday, July 29, when she found an injured man on a “discarded sofa behind the building,” the Redding Police Department said in a Facebook post.

After the guard called 911, first responders arrived and confirmed the man, who “had severe trauma to his face and head,” was dead, police said.

Officers reviewed the business’s video surveillance, which showed “a juvenile male, armed with a baseball bat, bludgeoning the sleeping” man, police said.

While searching the area, officers found a 15-year-old boy, who was identified as the suspect seen in the surveillance footage, according to police.

The boy was detained and later booked into the Shasta County Juvenile Rehabilitation Facility on multiple counts, including murder, police said.

The 55-year-old Redding man’s name will be released when the coroner’s office has notified his next of kin, police said.

Redding is about a 160-mile drive north from Sacramento.

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This story was originally published July 31, 2024 at 10:13 AM with the headline "15-year-old beats sleeping man to death with baseball bat, California police say."

Daniella Segura
McClatchy DC
Daniella Segura is a national real-time reporter with McClatchy. Previously, she’s worked as a multimedia journalist for weekly and daily newspapers in the Los Angeles area. Her work has been recognized by the California News Publishers Association. She is also an alumnus of the University of Southern California and UC Berkeley.
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