Suspects in Chicago face charges of hate crimes, kidnapping, battery and burglary after video appeared to show them attacking a man and protesting Trump

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Four suspects have been charged with hate crimes, kidnapping and battery after a Facebook Live broadcast in Chicago appeared to show a person with disabilities bound, gagged and brutally attacked amid shouts of “fuck Donald Trump”.

Four arrested over Facebook Live video of man tortured amid anti-Trump taunts Read more

The footage, which was live-streamed on Facebook, showed several people taunting and assaulting the man while he was sitting in the corner of a room, restrained and with his mouth taped closed.

Police identified the suspects as Jordan Hill, Tesfaye Cooper and sisters Brittany Covington and Tanishia Covington. The suspects are all 18 years old, except Tanishia Covington, who is 24, according to the Associated Press.

In addition to charges of aggravated kidnapping and hate crimes, all four suspects were accused of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and aggravated unlawful restraint. The Covington sisters were also charged with burglary, and Hill was accused of stealing a vehicle.

The suspects are black, and the victim, who at one point appears to be forced to shout the words “fuck Trump”, is white.

Police commander Kevin Duffin told reporters on Thursday that prosecutors agreed to pursue hate crime charges due to the victim’s “diminished mental capacity, the fact that they tied him up, the obvious racial quotes”.

He said the victim knew Hill from school, and that on 31 December, the victim’s parents dropped him off at a McDonald’s in Streamwood, Illinois, to meet Hill.

Driving a stolen vehicle, Hill took the victim to Chicago, and the victim ended up sleeping in the van, according to Duffin.

The victim’s parents eventually reported him missing, and on Tuesday, Hill and the victim went to the Chicago home of the Covington sisters, where the four suspects allegedly tormented him for hours.

The disturbing footage, which gained a wider audience when it was shared via YouTube on Wednesday, lasts about 30 minutes and at one point appeared to have 16,000 Facebook views. Large parts consist of one of the women smoking and talking animatedly into the camera.

At one point she appears to respond to real-time comments from other Facebook users. “My sister said it’s not funny,” the woman said. A male voice interjects: “Tell Donald Trump that’s not funny.”



The references to the president-elect are peppered throughout the video.

At another point, a male suspect appears to take a knife to the top of the victim’s head. Subsequent footage appears to show the victim bleeding.

“Look at him, tied up,” one man can be heard saying, laughing and threatening to put the victim “in a trunk”. At one point, a suspect appears to grab the victim by his neck and tighten the ties around him.



“I’ll torture the fuck out of you,” a man later says in the video, looking at the camera. Another male voice can be heard adding: “There’s going to be a murder here.”



President Barack Obama addressed the controversy in an interview with CBS 2 in Chicago on Thursday, saying the attack was “despicable”, but not a sign of worsening racial tensions.

The victim was tied up in a corner for about four hours, according to Duffin.

Officials said a neighbor eventually called police to complain about the noise, which prompted the sisters to get into a confrontation with the caller and kick in the door, leading to the burglary charges. At that point, police said, the victim escaped.

Officer Michael Donnelly, who encountered the victim, said: “He was bloodied. He was battered.”

The victim was hospitalized, and officers said they quickly realized he was the subject of the video circulating on social media.

Duffin said the victim was initially engaged in a “play fight” with Hill, but that the confrontation escalated. He said police had no indication of whether the victim was a Trump supporter.

A grandmother of one of the suspects told the Associated Press that the granddaughter she had raised from infancy is “not this person”.

“I’m so upset, my head is about to bust open,” said Priscilla Covington of Chicago, who said she had spoken to her granddaughter just days ago.

“I don’t know if someone influenced her ... She had her ups and downs. [She] was a good person,” said Covington.

A Facebook spokesperson said in a statement: “We do not allow people to celebrate or glorify crimes on Facebook and have removed the original video for this reason. In many instances, though, when people share this type of content, they are doing so to condemn violence or raise awareness about it. In that case, the video would be allowed.”

It’s unclear how long the Facebook video remained on the site. Asked if police had any indication why the suspects live-streamed the incident, Duffin replied: “I can’t understand why anybody puts anything on Facebook.”