A judge denied bail Friday for the four people who are accused of torturing an 18-year-old man with special needs and streaming it live on Facebook.
The so-called 'Facebook-Four' - Jordan Hill, 18; Tesfaye Cooper, 18; Brittany Covington, 18; and Tanishia Covington, 24; were each charged with four felonies each including 'hate crime'.
http://abc7chicago.com/video/embed/
As ABC reports, Police said it all started when the victim was dropped-off by his parents at a McDonald's near northwest suburban Streamwood on Dec. 31, for what they thought would be a New Year's Eve sleepover at a friend's house. That friend is one of the suspects.
On Tuesday, an officer spotted the bloodied and ill-clothed victim walking around in the 3400-block of West Lexington Avenue in the city's Homan Square neighborhood on the West Side after he managed to escape.
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 and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, according to the Cook County state's attorney. Hill was also charged with robbery and possession of a stolen motor vehicle.
Hill, Cooper and Brittany Covington were charged with residential burglary, for allegedly retaliating against a neighbor who complained about the noise in the apartment where the alleged crimes occurred.
In a Thursday interview with ABC7's Judy Hsu, President Barack Obama addressed the attack, calling it "horrific."
"It's terrible. Part of what technology allows us to see now is the terrible toll that racism and discrimination and hate takes on families and communities. But that's part of how we learn, how we get better," Obama said.
Which raised a few eyebrows and left us asking two questions...
1) Is this a racist attack? Obama seems to believe it is (while Josh Earnest said "it was too early to tell." And
2) Is Obama implying we are getting a glimpse at the 'reaction' to racism/discrimination or the racism/discrimination itself?