OF THE
TIMES
The victim's parents reported their son who "has mental health challenges" as missing late Monday night, police in the suburb of Streamwood said. Around the same time they reported him missing, his parents began receiving texts from someone "claiming to be holding him captive." By Tuesday, the video of the white man being tortured was being livestreamed.
Though the attack began with a play fight between the victim and Hill, it quickly escalated. The four suspects repeatedly refer to the victim as a Donald Trump supporter in the live video, which has since been taken down from both Facebook and YouTube. The attackers cut and repeatedly hit the victim, and can be heard shouting "F*** Donald Trump! F*** white people!," "beat his ass," and "he gonna be a corpse." They also forced him to say "F*** Trump," "I love black people," and kiss the floor. The victim was tied up in a corner, and left there for "about four to five hours," Duffin said. The group also "made him drink toilet water."
[...]
Meanwhile, at the apartment, officers "discovered signs of a struggle and damage to the property and [were] able to link this evidence to the disoriented male," the Chicago Police Department said in a Facebook post. It was after finding the victim and the location of his abuse that they found out about the Facebook Live. Police believe the crimes against him took place over the course of six hours on Tuesday, based on statements by the victim and the four suspects.
Although the suspects clearly expressed racial epithets in the video, police initially refused to classify the incident as a hate crime, leading to a backlash on social media. #BLMKidnapping trended on Twitter between the police press conference on Wednesday and the announcement of charges on Thursday.
Amazing-The Cops Didn't Shoot First when they found victim wandering, confused.
Sad that's a reasonable thing to say.
R.C.
P.s., The 28 yr career cop's statement makes likely he's one of the good cops out there; I like to think they were, at some time past, a majority.
RC