Story highlights The two 16-year-olds are charged as adults, a spokeswoman says

Several others with suspect accused of "rendering criminal assistance"

WWII vet Delbert Belton tried to fight off his teenage attackers, police chief says

Police say the incident was a botched robbery and race was not a motive

Police said Monday that the 88-year-old World War II vet, who died last week after a brutal beating in a parking lot in Spokane, Washington, tried to fend off his attackers. Two teenagers are in custody, including one arrested early Monday.

Belton's death on Thursday came 68 years after he survived being shot in the leg during the World War II battle of Okinawa.

"He came close to losing his life in service to this country on Okinawa, and then he gets killed needlessly onthe parking lot while he was waiting for a friend," Spokane police Chief Frank Straub Jr. said.

Belton's efforts to defend himself may have worsened the attack, Straub said. The Spokane County Medical Examiner's Office said Belton died of blunt facial and head injuries.

Straub said information provided by church leaders and family members led investigators to a Spokane apartment where they found 16-year-old Kenan Adams-Kinard early Monday morning.

Police arrested him in connection with Belton's killing and arrested three others who were with him on charges of rendering criminal assistance, a felony. Straub did not identify the other three, and it was not immediately clear if they were adults or juveniles.

He described them as friends of Adams-Kinard, one of two teenagers accused of trying to rob Belton in the parking