by Mitch Smith and Monica Davey

January 5, 2017

 

CHICAGO — A white teenager cowers in a corner, his hands bound with orange cords and his mouth covered with tape. Four African-Americans kick and hit him and slash at his scalp. As a cellphone camera captures their blurry images and broadcasts the ordeal on Facebook, the attackers hurl racial insults and denounce President-elect Donald J. Trump.

On Thursday, as a groundswell of online outrage over the beating laid bare racial tensions ahead of the presidential transition, four people who the police said had participated in the assault were charged with hate crimes.

The police said the victim, an 18-year-old from the suburbs with mental disabilities, spent hours tied up and terrified on Chicago’s West Side before officers found him wandering the streets in a daze.

“They admit that they were beating him, kicking him,” Cmdr. Kevin Duffin of the Chicago Police said of the four defendants. “They made him drink toilet water.”

Full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/05/us/chicago-racially-charged-attack-video.html