In an interview with CBS2, President Obama called the abuse “despicable.” His press secretary, Josh Ernest, said it showed “a level of depravity that is an outrage to a lot of Americans.”
But, Obama added, “I think the overall trajectory of race relations in this country is actually very positive.”
“It doesn’t mean that all racial problems have gone away. It means that we have the capacity to get better,” said Obama.
The video streamed on Facebook showed the man with his hands tied and his mouth covered. Two people cut the man’s clothes while someone laughs.
Someone takes a knife to the man’s head and appears to cut his scalp, leaving the man bleeding. The kidnappers laugh, shout and joke, and at one point someone slaps the man.
Someone says they are dropping cigarette ashes on the man’s bleeding wounds. The attackers forced the man to drink water from a toilet.
The torture session took place over four to five hours, police said.
“B—- a– n—-, boy,” a man says at one point. “F— Donald Trump, n—–. F— white people, boy.”
Supt. Eddie Johnson and Mayor Rahm Emanuel described the attack as “sickening.”
“Let me be very clear,” Supt. Johnson said at a Thursday news conference. “The actions in that video are reprehensible. That alone with racism have absolutely no place in the city of Chicago or anywhere for that matter against anyone regardless of their race, gender, state of mental health or any other identifying factor.”
The trouble began on New Year’s Eve, when the victim’s parents dropped him off at a McDonald’s in Streamwood to spend the night with a friend, later identified as Hall. The pair at one time went to school together in Aurora.
While the victim waited for his friend to pick him up, Hall stole a van, Duffin said. The victim did not know the car was stolen.
Hall drove them to the West Side of Chicago to cruise around the neighborhood and visit friends for two days, Duffin said.
Detectives learned the victim even slept in the stolen van.