MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Four juveniles and one adult were arrested early Friday morning for beating a man in northeast Minneapolis.

Stash Hanks and four juveniles were arrested shortly after they pulled a gun on, beat and kicked Troy Anderson. The beating happened around 6 a.m. on the 3500 block of 3rd Street Northeast.

Anderson says he had to fight for his life just for asking what the men what they were doing in his backyard. Anderson said he noticed the group wandering from yard to yard.

“I was…making my coffee when I seen the kid walking down,” Anderson said.

Anderson said his day began with his own investigation into why someone was lurking in his backyard. He went to the alley behind his home to check things out.

“Then I watched one of the kids walk up into another yard, so that’s when I stepped out in the alley and started yelling at ‘em,” Anderson said.

He told the group to move along, and they told him they wouldn’t.

“I walked down there, got down at the end of the alley; and they pulled out a frickin’ gun on me,” Anderson said. “He frickin’ cocked it and pulled it on me, and I went tunnel vision, walked up, grabbed it out of his hands; and once I got my hands on the gun, the rest walked up and started beatin’ on me.”

He was beaten and kicked on his head, knees and elbows. Anderson bore wounds all over his body and had to get stitches in the back of his head.

“The clip fell out of the gun, so I think one of them might have picked it up and hit me in the back of the head with it — that’s how I gota cut in the back of my head I had to get stitches in,” he said.

Just as quickly as the beating began, it ended. Anderson was able to get up the alley and to his house, where he called police.

Officers eventually tracked down those involved and arrested them for aggravated assault.

Anderson says he does not consider himself a hero; he says he was just protecting his property and looking out for his neighbors.

Officers did recover a gun at the scene.

Investigators are putting their case together to present to the Hennepin County Attorney for possible charges.

Police said residents should call police if they witness suspicious activity.