MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. -- Police said four teenagers have been charged with a hate crime and one man has been charged with attempted murder after a black college student was beaten and nearly drowned at a beach during the weekend.

Miguel Aranda, 18, Marino Biondini, Gilberto Maakaroun, both 17, and a 15-year-old whose name is being withheld are charged with a hate crime and battery in connection with the beating of Stephen Barnett, 22. Aranda and Maakaroun are also charged with attempted felony murder.

Jose Osorio, 21, is charged with aggravated battery and attempted felony murder, but not a hate crime.

According to the arrest report, police officers responded to reports of a fight at Haulover Marine Center at about 2 a.m. Sunday. When officers arrived, a fisherman who called police said he saw Barnett in the ocean, struggling with one of the accused and having his head held underwater in an apparent attempt to drown him.

Barnett, a student at Florida International University, told police he was on a boat returning from a party on an island with fellow FIU students Daniel Cabezas, 22, and Christopher Eden, 18, when the teens told him to "get out of the boat, n-----," according to the arrest report.

Cabezas and Eden told Local 10 that they got off the boat and waited for the next one, but Osorio and the teens were waiting for them on shore, armed with metal rods and a baseball bat.

"I'm not going to lie. I was scared," said Eden. "But, I mean, they were on the docks. We couldn't, like, go around them. We couldn't avoid them."

Cabezas said he feared for his life and "thought we were all going to die."

"One kid hit Steve in the back of the head with a baseball bat, made him fall in the water," said Cabezas.

Barnett was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital's Ryder Trauma Center in critical condition.

Osorio and the teens were taken into custody. The baseball bat used in the attack was taken as evidence.