January 01, 2024
On August 18th, 2023, Richard Kuehner’s son was savagely beaten by a group of teenagers outside of an In-n-Out in Gilbert, Arizona. Gilbert police have still not made any arrests, and appear to have closed down the investigation until recently.
According to Kuehner, the attack and lack of satisfactory law enforcement response led him to withdraw his son from school in Arizona and send him overseas to live with his mother due to concerns for his son’s safety.
Kuehner told KSAZ-TV that his son began receiving threatening Snapchat messages earlier in the year from someone he did not know. “They were pretty violent. Some had pictures of a gun pointed at him and, you know, threatening manners and stuff like that,” Kuehner said.
Kuehner says he immediately reported the messages to both the school district and police. The threats escalated the following week when, according to Kuehner, a group of teens showed up to his house and threatened him. Then, finally, on August 18th, a group of ten teenagers apparently approached Kuehner’s son at an In-n-Out while loaded into a white pickup. The teens reportedly hopped out of the back of the truck and attacked Kuehner’s son, sending him to the hospital with kidney damage. Kuehner says the attack has cost him over $15,000 in out-of-pocket hospital bills so far.
The police reportedly spent about an hour the night of the attack going through his son’s phone trying to find if there was a connection to the attackers or if Kuehner’s son had somehow instigated the incident, but “We couldn’t find any connection or anything. He doesn’t even know these kids.”
No one was ever arrested for the attack and the police apparently shelved the investigation until recently. According to Kuehner, police finally sought a warrant for social media accounts belonging to people identified on his son’s phone and have identified at least one suspect. Kuhner, though, isn’t happy, telling the Arizona Republic “I feel better. Still pissed off that it took so long. I struggle with that because they could have had all this stuff done months ago.”
The police apparently only reopened the investigation on December 14th when information came to light that the attack may have been perpetrated by a group known as the “Gilbert Goons,” a gang that has been tied to a number of unprovoked attacks on area teenagers. An Arizona Republic report claims that the Gilbert Goons have apparently recorded themselves carrying out these attacks and random assaults on passersby at various public places, including malls and restaurants.
These attacks have reportedly been ongoing for more than a year and are potentially responsible for at least one death. Local parents told the Arizona Republic that they suspect the group was behind the fatal beating of 16-year-old Preston Lord on October 28th. Kuehner believes that if police had acted quicker in response to the attack on his son, Lord would still be alive today.
“If any of these kids were the same kids that killed Preston, and if they (police) had done their job … I struggle with that because maybe Preston would be alive today and we wouldn’t be doing this. But we don’t know, we’ll find out. Once all the dots are connected and everything, I think we’ll find out.”
The Gilbert Police Department declined to answer most questions from the Arizona Republic, noting that the cases remain under investigation.
