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Earlier this year, a 51-year-old man was horribly beaten.

Days after the seemingly random attack, he died in a Rhode Island hospital.

Police have arrested four children, who are now facing charges — including murder.

They’re not even teenagers yet. The community has a lot of questions about why this happened.

Even had it not been fatal, this would have been a brutal crime

On January 19, police responded to a report of a violent assault.

Witnesses told police that they had observed multiple young people attacking a man.

The youths in question allegedly attacked the man, knocking him to the ground and then proceeding to kick and punch him repeatedly.

These assailants then left the scene.

Authorities transported the victim, 51-year-old Rony Alonzo, to a nearby hospital.

In the wake of the violent attack, investigators began video canvassing the area.

(Almost everywhere in public areas, particularly in cities and neighborhoods, is under surveillance. That is only one of many reasons, some would argue, to not commit a homicide)

The video canvassing paid off.

Investigators were able to identify four possible suspects. Unfortunately, the good news stops there.

The alleged assailants are all children — not even teenagers. Three are 12. One is only 11.

What began as an assault charge turned into a murder case

According to authorities, three were taken into custody for allegedly throwing rocks at cars. The fourth was arrested after investigators obtained and executed a warrant.

This is when the story goes from awful to, somehow, even worse.

On January 23, Alonzo died in the hospital from his injuries.

The medical examiner performed an autopsy, determining that his cause of death was blunt force trauma.

The four tween suspects, who were already facing charges, are now facing upgraded charges.

Prosecutors are bringing a case of murder and conspiracy to commit felony assault against all four as a result of the fatal beating.

The Providence Police Department says that two of the children were arraigned in family court on January 27.

The other two were awaiting arraignment at that time.

According to WJAR, authorities have of course not released the names of the suspects because of their ages.

Allegedly, the children admitted to their roles in the assault during their interviews with police. (This should, as always, be taken with a grain of salt — particularly when it comes to minors in police custody)

Our thoughts are with Alonzo’s family and loved ones

Nearly half of the states do not have a minimum threshold age at which minors can be tried as adults. Rhode Island is one of them.

For now, our (limited!) understanding of the RI legal system is that this trial will be in family court unless the Rhode Island attorney general or the family court judge decide otherwise.

As for the victim, Alonzo immigrated from Guatemala to the United States 30 years ago.

There is no known motive for the attack against him, despite social media commenters speculating that anti-immigrant rhetoric may have motivated a possible hate crime.

Authorities are still conducting an investigation. This is a devastating tragedy for Alonzo and for his loved ones.