Chicago police are investigating a video appearing to show a man tied up and assaulted while attackers shout ‘fuck Donald Trump’ and ‘fuck white people’

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Chicago police have arrested four suspects after a Facebook Live broadcast appeared to show a man bound, gagged and brutally attacked amid shouts of “fuck Donald Trump”.

The footage, which was live-streamed on Facebook, showed several people taunting and assaulting the man while he was sitting in the corner of a room, restrained and with his mouth taped closed.

Police superintendent Eddie Johnson told reporters late Wednesday that the suspects, who are likely to be charged in the next 24 hours, would face “the full weight of the Chicago police department”.



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“Video of a brutal act towards an adult male with mental health challenges made its way onto social media,” Johnson said. “The images in the video put on display the brazenness of the offenders who assaulted the victim and then broadcast it for the entire world to see.”



Police said all four suspects, two men and two women, all of whom they said were “young adults”, were in custody and being questioned.

Asked about the shouts of “fuck Trump” and “fuck white people” heard in the video, police commander Kevin Duffin said they would form part of their investigation into whether the attack constituted a hate crime. He added that investigators were attempting to determine “whether or not this is sincere or just stupid ranting and raving”.

The individuals captured on video tormenting the victim are black. The victim, who at one point appears to be forced to shout the words “fuck Trump”, is white.

Duffin added the victim, who is from the suburbs of Chicago, was a school acquaintance of one of the four suspects. “It’s quite a possibility it is a kidnapping,” Duffin said, noting that the suspects stole a van in the suburbs and “brought him out to Chicago”.

He said the victim had been reported missing and spent at least 24 hours – and possibly up to 48 hours – with the suspects.



“He’s traumatized by the incident and it’s very tough to communicate with him at this point,” he said. “It took most of the night for him to calm down enough to be able to talk to us.”

Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told the Guardian that the department was considering a range of possible hate crime charges but did not believe the suspects attacked the victim due to his race.

“This group of individuals was not traveling around looking to apprehend a white man,” he said. “He was not targeted because he was white.”

The disturbing footage, which gained a wider audience when it was shared on Wednesday via YouTube, lasts around 30 minutes and, at one point, appeared to have 16,000 Facebook views. Large parts consist of a woman, who police confirmed is among the suspects, smoking and talking animatedly into the camera.

She appears to respond to real-time comments from other Facebook users. “My sister said it’s not funny,” the woman said. A male voice interjects: “Tell Donald Trump that’s not funny.”



The references to the president-elect are peppered throughout the video.

Chicago Police (@Chicago_Police) CPD press conference regarding disturbing live social media video depicting a battery ; victim was tied up https://t.co/jDrjfz4sJV

At another point, a male suspect appears to take a knife to the top of the victim’s head. Subsequent footage appears to show the victim bleeding.

“Look at him, tied up,” one man can be heard saying, laughing and threatening to put the victim “in a trunk”. A suspect appears to grab the victim by his neck and tighten the ties around him.



“I’ll torture the fuck out of you,” a man later said in the video, looking at the camera. Another male voice can be heard: “There’s going to be a murder here.”

Police said the victim was discovered by patrol officers on Tuesday, disoriented and confused and transported to hospital for treatment. Officers later responded to a battery at a residence nearby where “they discovered signs of a struggle and damage to the property” and linked the case to the hospitalized man, police said.

A Facebook spokesperson said in a statement: “We do not allow people to celebrate or glorify crimes on Facebook and have removed the original video for this reason. In many instances, though, when people share this type of content, they are doing so to condemn violence or raise awareness about it. In that case, the video would be allowed.”</s>Four black teens were charged with hate crimes and other felonies in Chicago Thursday in connection with the apparent torture and a taunting of a white special needs student in a video that was posted live on Facebook, authorities announced.

Tesfaye Cooper, 18, Brittany Covington, 18, and Tanishia Covington, 24, all of Chicago, and Jordan Hill, 18, of Carpentersville, Ill., were each charged with aggravated kidnapping, hate crime, aggravated unlawful restraint, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and residential burglary, according to WLS-TV.

Hill was also charged with robbery and possession of a stolen motor vehicle.

the half-hour video, which exploded on social media on Wednesday, appears to show at least one black man torturing and taunting a white man and making disparaging remarks about President-elect Donald Trump.

The video was initially posted via Facebook Live under the account of someone named Brittany Herring and spread quickly through Twitter and under the hashtag #BLMKidnapping.

BLM is an apparent reference to the social justice group Black Lives Matter, which did not appear to have any connection to the video.

Facebook has confirmed that it removed from original video from one of the suspect's Facebook profiles, CNN reports. "We do not allow people to celebrate or glorify crimes on Facebook and have removed the original video for this reason," Facebook said. "In many instances, though, when people share this type of content, they are doing so to condemn violence or raise awareness about it. In that case, the video would be allowed."

The video, linked here, includes raw language. At one point, as the victim — who appears to be white — crouches against a wall with his wrists bound and his mouth taped shut, someone is heard on the video shouting, “F‑‑‑ Donald Trump” and “F‑‑‑ white people.”

Police said in a statement that the victim, who is believed to be from a Chicago suburb, was in stable condition. Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said Wednesday that the victim has "mental health challenges."

Police say it is too soon to make a determination whether the attack was racially motivated. Many social media users, however, likened the incident to a hate crime and said race was the motivating factor. Herring did not immediately respond to a message sent to her via Facebook inbox.

Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told the Associated Press on Thursday that police don't believe the victim was targeted because he was white despite profanities made by the accused assailants about white people and Trump.

He acknowledged that the suspects made “terrible racist statements” during the assault, but that investigators believe the victim was targeted because he has “special needs,” not because of his race.

Guglielmi said it’s possible the suspects were trying to extort something from the victim’s family.

In a news conference, Johnson described the video as “sickening.”

The video, recorded by one of the women in the group, appears to show two men using knives to cut the man's shirt, then taking turns hitting him and stomping his head. At one point, one of the men appears to cut the victim’s hair and scalp. The assailants are also seen fingering a bleeding wound on the top of his head as a woman in the video laughs.

“It makes you wonder what would make individuals treat somebody like that,” Johnson said. “I've been a cop for 28 years and I've seen things that you shouldn't see. It still amazes me how you still see things that you just shouldn't."

Police Cmdr. Kevin Duffin said the victim was with his attackers for 24 to 48 hours before police found him, and the episode has left him shaken.

“He’s traumatized by the incident and it’s very tough to communicate with him at this point,” he said.

Duffin said Wednesday that charges were expected to be filed within 24 hours against four people who were taken into custody. He added that the suspects made "stupid decisions."

Investigators will "determine whether or not this is sincere or just stupid ranting and raving," Duffin said when asked about the language used in the recording.

CNN reports that the suspects — two men and two women — are all 18.

The victim, also 18, knew at least one of his accused attackers from school, according to Duffin. His parents reported him missing when he disappeared after they dropped him off at a McDonald's in the Chicago suburb of Streamwood, the Chicago Tribune reports. Streamwood police said his parents began getting text messages from someone "claiming to be holding him captive," the Tribune reports.

Although the victim may have gotten into a van with the group voluntarily, police are considering kidnapping charges in the case.

In an earlier statement, Chicago police said officers were called to a residence on the city's West Side on Tuesday evening where they found signs of a struggle and damaged property.

They said they later spotted a disoriented male on the street and took him to a hospital. They believe he is the same person seen being tortured in the video, tied up and sitting in a corner.

Officers said they later became aware of the video circulating on social media.</s>CHICAGO — Four people accused of torturing a mentally disabled man in Chicago were charged with a hate crime on Thursday, according to WGN.

The disturbing 30-minute video shows a man tied up and his mouth covered, cowering in the corner of room. His attackers laugh and shout "f*ck Donald Trump" and "f*ck white people" as they kick and punch him and and cut into his forehead with a knife.

The attack was streamed live on Facebook.

Jordan Hill, 18, Tesfaye Cooper, 18, Brittany Covington, 18, and Tanishia Covinton, 24, all face hate crime and aggravated kidnapping charges in addition to other related charges.

Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said the video shows a "brutal act toward an adult male with mental health challenges."

Police say officers observed a disoriented male in "distress" walking in the 3400 block of West Lexington Wednesday around 5:30 p.m., according to WGN. After speaking to the victim, the officers then responded to a home nearby. There, they discovered “signs of a struggle and damage to property.” Police say the officers connected this evidence to the disoriented male.

The victim was taken to the hospital and is in stable condition.

“Officers later became aware of a social media video depicting a battery of an adult male which is believed to be the same individual,” police said in a statement.

Earlier Thursday, Chicago Police Department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said that the four black suspects made “terrible racist statements” during the assault but that police believe the victim was targeted because he has “special needs,” not because of his race.</s>African-American youths arrested after video of mentally disabled man being abused is shared on social media.

Chicago police say they have arrested four people suspected of attacking and taunting a young Chicago man in a video circulated on social media.

In the video shared via Facebook Live on Wednesday, four African-Americans are seen assaulting the duct-taped man, while yelling racially-charged obscenities.

The man, who was described as mentally-disabled, was taken by the suspects from a Chicago suburb to an area in the southwestern side of the city, and was with them for 24 to 48 hours, police said.

One of the suspects was a school acquaintance of the victim, who is white, according to police.

The suspects and the victim were said to be young adults over 18 years old.

In the video originally posted by one of the arrested perpetrators, the suspects are seen laughing during the assault and repeatedly yelling: "F*** Donald Trump! F*** white people!"

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The victim can be seen squatting in a corner with his mouth duct-taped, and his hands and legs apparently tied up. His clothes are partially cut at one point, he is threatened repeatedly, and a part of his hair is cut down to his scalp causing a bleeding wound.

"It's sickening," Chicago police chief Eddie Johnson said at a news conference announcing that the four suspects were being held pending formal charges.

Police had not yet determined whether the incident constituted a hate crime or if there were political motivations behind the attack.

Police were also still trying to determine whether the victim was kidnapped, saying that he was traumatised and was having difficulty communicating with investigators. 

 

 Authorities said the victim has been released from a hospital.</s>CHICAGO (AP) — Four black people were charged with hate crimes Thursday in connection with a video broadcast live on Facebook that showed a mentally disabled white man being beaten and taunted, threatened with a knife and forced to drink from a toilet.

The assault went on for hours, until Chicago police found the disoriented victim walking along a street, authorities said.

The suspects, who were jailed, can be heard on the video using profanities against white people and President-elect Donald Trump.

Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said investigators initially concluded that the 18-year-old man was singled out because he has “special needs,” not because he was white, although Guglielmi acknowledged the suspects made “terrible racist statements.”

It’s also possible that the suspects were trying to extort something from the victim’s family, police said.

That idea seemed to be supported by authorities in suburban Streamwood, who said the man’s parents had reported their son missing Monday and later received text messages from people who claimed to be holding him captive.

The victim was a classmate of one of the attackers and initially went with that person voluntarily, police said.

“He’s traumatized by the incident, and it’s very tough to communicate with him at this point,” police Cmdr. Kevin Duffin said.

Excerpts of the video posted by Chicago media outlets show the victim with his mouth taped shut and slumped in a corner of a room. At least two assailants cut off his sweatshirt, and others taunt him off camera. The video shows a wound on the top of the man’s head. One person pushes the man’s head with his or her foot.

A red band also appears to be around the victim’s hands. Authorities said he was tied up for four to five hours.

Off-camera, people can be heard using the profanities.

During the video, the victim does not appear to make any attempt to defend himself or to escape his attackers. He is a suburban Chicago resident described by Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson as having “mental health challenges.”

“There was never a question whether or not this incident qualified as being investigated as a hate crime,” Johnson said. But, he added, “we need to base the investigation based on facts and not emotion.”

Police said there is no indication the attack was linked to the Black Lives Matter movement, as some social media hashtags implied.

The incident began Dec. 31, when the victim and one of the suspects, 18-year-old Jordan Hill, met at a suburban McDonald’s to begin what both the victim and his parents believed would be a sleepover, police said.

Instead, Hill drove the victim around in a stolen van for a couple of days, ending up at a home in Chicago, where two of the other suspects lived, Detective Commander Kevin Duffin said.

The victim told police what began as playful fighting escalated, and he was bound, beaten and taunted with racial slurs and disparaging comments about his mental capacity.

A downstairs neighbor who heard noises threatened to call police. When two of the suspects left and kicked down the neighbor’s door, the victim escaped. A police officer later spotted the obviously disoriented man wandering down a street.

The man was bloodied and wearing a tank top that was inside-out and backwards. He had on jean shorts and sandals, despite the winter weather, officer Michael Donnelly said.

Most hate crimes are connected to the victim’s race, but hate-crime charges can be sought in Illinois if a victim’s mental disability sparked an attack, though it is rare.

Hate-crime charges can only be sought if another charge is filed.

A hate-crime conviction can add up to three years to a prison sentence, according to Betsy Shuman-Moore, director of the Hate Crime Project for the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights.

In addition to hate crimes, the four were charged with kidnapping, aggravated battery and aggravated unlawful restraint. Three were also charged with burglary.

The grandmother of a young woman associated with the video said the granddaughter she raised from infancy is “not this person.”

“I’m so upset, my head is about to bust open,” said Priscilla Covington of Chicago. “I don’t know if someone influenced her … She had her ups and down. (She) was a good person. I’m so confused.”

In Washington, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the beating demonstrated “a level of depravity that is an outrage to a lot of Americans.” He said he had not yet spoken to President Barack Obama about the attack in the president’s hometown.

Cook County prosecutors identified the suspects as Brittany Covington and Tesfaye Cooper, both of Chicago, and Hill of suburban Carpentersville. All are 18. A fourth suspect was identified as 24-year-old Tanishia Covington, also of Chicago.

The video emerged at a time when police dealings with Chicago’s black community are being closely watched. Less than a year ago, the nation’s third-largest police force was sharply criticized by a task force for using excessive force and honoring a code of silence.

The department has also been the subject of a long civil-rights investigation by the Justice Department, which is expected to report its findings soon.</s>Four teenagers face hate crime, aggravated kidnapping and other felony charges in connection with the torture and beating of a bound and gagged man in Chicago broadcast live on Facebook.

The 18-year-old suspects — identified as Jordan Hill, Tesfaye Cooper, Brittany Covington and Tanishia Covington — were charged Thursday ahead of an afternoon bond hearing.

The charges also include aggravated unlawful restraint and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.

Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi had tweeted Thursday morning that authorities were continuing to investigate the “senseless attack,” potentially as a hate crime after the attackers, who are black, were heard yelling anti-white epithets at various points throughout the 30-minute video.

The unidentified 18-year-old victim, described as having mental health challenges, went to school with of one of the attackers and may have willingly gone with the group, authorities said. His family in suburban Chicago first reported him missing late Monday.

Other possible motives for the attack have not been released. At a news conference Wednesday, police said they must determine whether the racial statements were “sincere or just stupid ranting and raving.”

The victim was traumatized by the violence, and eventually spoke with police after he was located wandering on a Chicago street Tuesday night disheveled and in distress. He had to be hospitalized, officials said.

The video, which first aired Tuesday and was also uploaded to YouTube, shows the victim cowering in a corner as the group kicks and slaps him and cuts his hair until his scalp bleeds.

The assailants can also be heard laughing, discussing drug use and yelling “F— Donald Trump!” and “F— white people!”

Related: Four Teens Held in Connection With Kidnapping After ‘Facebook Live’ Torture Video Airs

Police are also aware of a second video that showed the teen being forced to drink out of a toilet, according to NBC Chicago. NBC News has not verified that second video.

“It’s sickening,” police Superintendent Eddie Johnson told reporters Wednesday. Police also have no evidence it was a politically motivated attack.

A Facebook spokesperson said Thursday that the original video was taken down because the social network does “not allow people to celebrate or glorify crimes.”

“In many instances, though, when people share this type of content, they are doing so to condemn violence or raise awareness about it,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “In that case, the video would be allowed.”

At around the same time that police found the victim on the street, other officers responded to a report of property damage and a struggle at a nearby address, and apprehended the suspects.

Various groups, including members of Black Lives Matter, have condemned the attack as “barbaric behavior” and called for justice for the victim.</s>The video showed a man in Chicago being tortured, and it was right there on social media for everyone to see.

As with other recent cases of live-streamed violence in the US, the reaction was swift, loud and highly politicized.

Chicago Police called the incident, first seen in a 30-minute Facebook Live stream, "sickening."

On Thursday, authorities filed hate crime charges against four suspects, all black, for an attack Tuesday on the victim, an 18-year-old white man. The victim, who police say has special needs, was shown backed into a corner, tied up with his mouth taped shut, and bleeding from his scalp as his hair was cut with a knife.

Following Wednesday's arrest of the four, the police were also investigating a second video that appeared on Twitter. This one showed the victim being forced to drink from a toilet at an apartment on the city's west side.

"Drink that s*** right f****** now," someone could be heard yelling while also making disparaging comments about US President-elect Donald Trump. "Drink the toilet water, b****! Say, 'F*** Trump!' Say, "F*** Trump!'"

That drew a strong reaction from the head of the city's police.

"The actions in that video are reprehensible," Chicago Police Superintendent Richard Johnson told reporters Thursday. Those actions or any kind of racism have no place in Chicago or anywhere else, he said.

Facebook took down the video, though copies of it can still be found online.

"We do not allow people to celebrate or glorify crimes on Facebook and have removed the original video for this reason," a company spokesman said. "In many instances, though, when people share this type of content, they are doing so to condemn violence or raise awareness about it. In that case, the video would be allowed."

Twitter declined to comment for this story.

The incident marks the latest example of violence spilling live into social media feeds on the phones and PCs of people across the country and around the world. Over the past two years, Americans have borne witness to, among other incidents, the shooting death of Philando Castile during a traffic stop in Minneapolis; sniper attacks on police in Dallas; and, in June, a gang-related killing, also in Chicago.

In many of those cases, the human tragedy has led to visceral outbursts online and has inflamed debate over race relations.

Such outbursts occurred Thursday as the Chicago incident trended on both Twitter and Facebook.

Many on Twitter lashed out at the attackers, alleging that the violence was tied to the Black Lives Matter movement. The hashtag #blmkidnapping had a steady flow of uncompromising comments.

People with ties to Black Lives Matter dismissed any connection between that movement and the Chicago attack. Activist Deray McKesson said in a tweet that "It goes without saying that the actions being branded by the far-right as the 'BLM Kidnapping' have nothing to do w/ the movement."

In addition to the hate crime charge, each of the two men and two women in custody in Chicago faces criminal charges of aggravated kidnapping, aggravated unlawful restraint and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.

Police say the victim had been reported missing for days after being dropped off by his parents at a suburban McDonald's on New Year's Eve to hang out with one of the suspects, whom he went to school with and considered a friend. That suspect allegedly picked up the victim in a stolen van and they drove to Chicago and hung out with people including the three other suspects.

The victim escaped just hours after the Tuesday attack and police found him wandering around traumatized after they responded to a disturbance involving the two female suspects. The police said they later made a connection to the Facebook Live video, in which the suspects can allegedly be seen in the background eating and laughing during the attack.

Police said the victim may have been tortured for up to six hours.

"It makes you wonder what would make individuals treat somebody like that," Johnson told reporters. "I'm not going to say it shocked me, but it was sickening."</s>Four sick bastards got busted in Chicago for allegedly tying up and torturing a white guy ... and they broadcast the whole crime on Facebook Live.

The suspects are all black and shouted "F*** Donald Trump" and "F*** white people" repeatedly during a 30 minute video that showed them harassing and tormenting the victim ... even cutting his scalp, leaving him bleeding at one point.

The victim is an 18-year-old from a Chicago suburb. Police say he is mentally challenged, and had been reported missing. He was found disoriented Tuesday, and cops later connected him to the disturbing social media clip ... which led them to the suspects.</s>CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago police say authorities are considering whether an attack on a white man that was broadcast live on Facebook falls under hate crimes statutes.

Chicago Police Department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said Thursday morning that the four black suspects made “terrible racist statements” during the assault but that police believe the victim was targeted because he has “special needs,” not because of his race.

Still, Guglielmi says investigators are looking at whether the assault falls under hate-crime laws.

Guglielmi says charges are expected later Thursday. He says the four suspects are all adults.</s>The White House on Thursday condemned the “depravity” of the shocking Chicago attack streamed on Facebook Live in which assailants were shown beating a mentally disabled man while shouting racial slurs and anti-Donald Trump statements.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest called the images in the video “disturbing” and said the attack is still being investigated by local officials.

“They [the images] do demonstrate a level of depravity that is an outrage to a lot of Americans,” Earnest told reporters Thursday.

“I haven’t spoken to the president about it but I’m confident he would be angered by the pictures depicted on that video,” he said.

Hate crime and aggravated battery charges were filed Thursday against four African-American suspects who police say bound, gagged and tortured an 18-year-old man, who is white, in suburban Chicago.

The two male and two female suspects — Jordan Hill, 18, Tesfaye Cooper, 18, Brittany Covington, 18, and Tanishia Covington, 24 — were set to appear in Central Bond Court on Friday afternoon.

In the video, which was streamed on Facebook Live, the assailants cut the man’s scalp with a knife and punch him. One of the men can be heard shouting: “F–k Donald Trump! F–k white people!”

Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson called the video “sickening,” saying, “I’ve been a cop for 28 years and I’ve seen things that you shouldn’t see.”

“It still amazes me how you still see things that you just shouldn’t,” he said.

The victim, who has not been identified, was reported missing by his parents who said he disappeared after they dropped him off at a McDonald’s in Streamwood on Saturday, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Police believe the incident began when the victim, who lives in Crystal Lake, met the group in Streamwood, a neighboring suburb. They then drove to Chicago in a stolen vehicle, according to FOX32.

President Obama is expected to return to his hometown of Chicago next week for a farewell speech before leaving office. The Windy City, meanwhile, had one of its bloodiest years on record, with a report showing 762 homicides and more than 3,500 shooting incidents for 2016.

Police released crime statistics on Sunday that reveal rampant gun violence. The numbers also show that there were nearly 300 more homicides and more than 1,000 more shooting incidents than there were in 2015, with the total number of homicides the highest since 1997. The bulk of the homicides were in five of the city’s poorest neighborhoods.

President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday about the video. On Monday, Trump said that if Mayor Rahm Emanuel can’t turn the tide on Chicago’s murder rate, Washington may need to step in.

“Chicago murder rate is record setting – 4,331 shooting victims with 762 murders in 2016. If Mayor can’t do it he must ask for Federal help!” Trump tweeted.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Chicago Police arrest four African-American suspects after they stream a video on Facebook showing themselves torturing and scalping a bound and gagged, kidnapped, white man with a mental disorder. The four suspects will face elevated hate crime charges.