Their sons might be in jail, accused of taking part in the MGM Grand beating, but Dexter Smith Sr. and Sonya Smith said their children are not as bad as police and the media have made them out to be.

"Our kids aren't ... animals. They're teenagers," Smith Sr. said Tuesday.

The Smiths said they were upset that their oldest children, 18-year-old Demarcus Smith and 17-year-old Dexter Smith Jr., have been labeled as thugs and gang members after the group beating of an MGM Grand landscaper. The beating was captured on hotel surveillance cameras and made national headlines.

"We're not saying what they did was right," Smith Sr. said. "It's just not the way it's being portrayed."

Police think the group of more than a dozen youths was responsible for as many as six violent attacks during the weekend of April 15. Seven youths, including two girls, have been arrested.

The Smiths would not talk about how involved they thought their children were in the attacks, but they wanted the public to know that their sons are good young men.

Demarcus Smith was on track to graduate this year, his parents said. After graduation, he planned to work with his father as a pipe fitter and take college classes at night, they said.

He had played basketball at Cimarron-Memorial High School as a sophomore but had missed tryouts for the varsity team because they took place when his daughter was born, said Steve Boyack, the school's varsity coach.

The Smiths said their 17-year-old son, Dexter Smith Jr., was a bright student.

Sonya Smith, a hairdresser, said her sons felt sorry for what they did.

"They know better," she said. "They were raised better than that."

Dexter Smith Sr. blamed his sons' involvement on beer and peer pressure.

The Smith boys were friends with another of the arrested teens, 18-year-old Avery Slocome, who turned himself in, according to police reports. One of Slocome's friends, 18-year-old As'Ryen Brown, also turned himself in, the police reports said.

Slocome's mother, Vanessa Brooks, and Slocome's sister described him as a good boy who came under the bad influence of friends and some thugs he did not know.

"He didn't even know all the boys he was running with, some of them go to different schools," said Slocome's sister, Shatama Brooks.

Asked whether she was disappointed in her son, Slocome's mother erupted with emotion.

"I'm mad. I'm mad as hell at him," Vanessa Brooks said. "They could've killed that man. My heart goes out to the family of that man they beat. What if people did that to Avery? He'd want them to go to jail."

Vanessa Brooks said she was pleased that her son and friend Brown turned themselves into authorities voluntarily.

"That's the only good thing about this," she said, "that these boys are taking responsibility for what they did."

She said her son had been in trouble with police once before.

"When he was 16, he took a car and had it for two or three months. He got in trouble for that, but he got probation," she said.

The Smiths said if their sons were involved, they should write apology letters to the beating victims and help pay medical expenses.

"Our kids, I know they learned a lesson," Dexter Smith Sr. said. "They are scared to death. They are terrified. ... They all feel sorry for what they did, but you can't take it back. You have to deal with the consequences."

Review-Journal staff writer Mike Kalil contributed to this report.