A Chicago Police officer patrolling the neighborhood at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday spotted him in the 3400 block of West Lexington Street and pulled over to find out what happened. He didn’t get many answers.
“He was very discombobulated,” said Officer Michael Donnelly. “He was angered. He was confused.”
Donnelly radioed for an ambulance and soon learned the man was mentally disabled and had been reported missing in suburban Streamwood days earlier.
Little did he know the man had just escaped after being kidnapped, bound and tortured for hours in a horrific, racially-charged attack live-streamed on Facebook for all his abusers’ friends to see. It was an attack that stunned Chicago and was watched around the nation.
It started, police said, as two former classmates hanging out for days starting on New Year’s Eve. But after days together, a playfight between the victim and his friend escalated into the very real abuse shown online. Three others joined in, including two sisters who lived in the apartment where it happened, police said.
The four people allegedly doling out the abuse on the video — Jordan Hall, 18; Tesfaye Cooper, 18; and sisters Brittany Covington, 18, Tanishia Covington, 24 — have been charged with hate crime, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated unlawful restraint, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, robbery, possessing a stolen car and residential burglary, according to a news release from the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office.
Police say the suspects, all black, hurled racial slurs at their white victim, leading to the hate crime charges.
Hall was friends with the victim before he turned on him to join the broadcasted torture session, according to Kevin Duffin, commander of Chicago Police’s Area North detectives.
As he recovers, the victim is “doing as well as he could be at this time,” his family said Thursday evening.
The family knows about the charges filed against the four alleged assailants and watched the video of the attack, the victim’s brother-in-law said.
“We’re just happy he’s home,” said another family member, who said she felt utter “disbelief” when watching the video.
The case has grabbed national attention, and even drew a rebuke from The White House.