*If you haven’t heard, four people have been charged in connection with the torture of an 18-year-old man with special needs that was seen on Facebook Live. Here’s how it breaks down:
Jordan Hill, 18, of Carpentersville; Tesfaye Cooper, 18, of Chicago; Brittany Covington, 18, of Chicago; and Tanishia Covington, 24, of Chicago; were each charged with aggravated kidnapping, hate crime, aggravated unlawful restraint, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and residential burglary, according to the Cook County state’s attorney. Hill was also charged with robbery and possession of a stolen motor vehicle.
On Thursday, at a press conference, Chicago police detectives laid out the timeline of events that led up to a man being tied up, kicked, beaten, yelled at, slashed and forced to drink toilet water – all of which was streamed live on Facebook.
Police said they don’t know the motive behind the apparent torture or the suspects’ irrational decision to film it. At one point, the teens, who are black, told the victim, who is white, to say he loves black people.
Police said they investigated the attack as a hate crime and the state’s attorney agreed it met those standards by approving the charges.
“Let me be very clear, the actions in that video are reprehensible. That alone with racism have absolutely no place in the city of Chicago or anywhere else for that matter,” Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson said.
The still as yet unidentified victim, who is from northwest suburban Crystal Lake, was reported missing from nearby Streamwood by his parents on Monday. Police said they had not heard from him since Saturday, when they dropped him off at the McDonald’s near Schaumburg and Barrington roads to meet up for a sleepover with Hill. Police said the two were “acquaintances” who met at a school in Aurora.
Unbeknownst to the victim, investigators said Hill had stolen a van prior to picking him up at McDonald’s. Investigators said the pair then drove around for the next two days, visiting friends and sleeping in the van. It wasn’t until Tuesday that police said Hill brought the victim to an apartment in the 3400-block of West Lexington Avenue in the Homan Square neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side.
Investigators said the victim told them he got into a “play fight” with Hill that escalated when two of Hill’s acquaintances, the Covington sisters, became aggravated with him.
“That’s when they tie him up and when the racial slurs and, you know, the deference to his mental capacity starts coming out. That’s primarily one of the reasons they were charged with the hate crime,” said Cmdr. Kevin Duffin, Chicago Police Dept.
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