As the one-year anniversary of 16-year-old Preston Lord’s beating death approaches, Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell on Wednesday announced a proposed legal change to address teen violence by creating a new category of crime called “swarming,” which is defined as the act of a group attacking an individual.
“We’ve called the crime that our proposal addresses swarming because much like it sounds, this is focused on people who team up and beat up on a single individual,” Mitchell said during a press conference in Queen Creek. “This is for the most part what we have been seeing in recent cases of teen violence — three, four, five or more people targeting one person. This mob mentality that is demonstrated in these cases is significantly more dangerous for the victim and that danger needs to be reflected in our laws.”
