CAMARILLO : Ventura Man Beaten at Telephone Booth

A Ventura teen-ager using a telephone in a Camarillo shopping center Monday night was assaulted by a group of young men who said he did not belong in town.

Anthony Medeiros, 18, was at a telephone booth at the Crossroads Shopping Center in the 4000 block of Las Posas Road when a car containing about seven young men approached him, said Sgt. Paul Oechsle of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.

Some of the men asked Medeiros where he was from. When he answered that he was from Ventura, they said, “You’re in the wrong town,” Oechsle said.

The young men got out of the car and beat Medeiros, Oechsle said. Medeiros suffered cuts on his face and a two-inch cut on his wrist, Oechsle said. Medeiros, who said he thought he saw a green-handled knife, was treated at Pleasant Valley Hospital in Camarillo.

Oechsle said the attackers might be the same young men, believed to belong to a gang, who approached Derick Williams, 19, of Oxnard as he walked in Dos Caminos Park Sunday night. When Williams refused to fight, one member of the group pulled out a knife and slashed Williams’ wrist. He was treated at Pleasant Valley Hospital, Oechsle said.