King said she started walking through her neighborhood after he dropped her off, heading to a nearby store for a snack. Her mother filed a police report when her daughter didn't come home Sunday. She was finally spotted about 7:45 a.m. Tuesday.



After spending hours canvassing the neighborhood where the girl went missing, King said it's clear to him her tormentors are a part of a group of "thugs" who have terrorized that part of Lawndale.



"It hurts me to my core because I was one of the last people to see her," King said. "I want to make sure this never happens to anybody else's kids, and if that starts with taking down this one group, I'll make that my life's mission.



"If we don't stand up and do anything about it now, who knows if the next kid this happens to, maybe they don't get to come home. Maybe this doesn't get to have a happy ending."



King said a teenager alerted him to the assault on Facebook Live. "This is one of the bravest things I've ever seen a kid do," King said. "There were adults who saw this. None of them had the wherewithal to say, 'Hey, I gotta call someone.' "



Chicago activist Andrew Holmes got the video to police, and the girl's mother was shown screen shots and was able to identify her daughter.



The girl's mother ran into Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson at the 10th District station, and Johnson took an immediate interest in the case, said Guglielmi, the police spokesman.



Johnson "was visibly upset when he saw the pictures of the girl and was dismayed when he learned that people were watching the incident live and no one called police," Guglielmi wrote in an email to the Tribune.



"The superintendent immediately escorted the mother into the district and called the chief of detectives to order a team of investigators to respond to the district immediately."



Police also contacted Facebook and the video was taken down.



The attack was at least the fourth Chicago crime caught on Facebook Live since the end of October.



After one of the previous attacks — when a special needs man was tormented and tortured by a group of people — the company said it does not allow people "to celebrate or glorify crimes" on its network.



Facebook has a team on call 24 hours a day to respond to reports of inappropriate live videos as they're happening, the company said. A viewer can interrupt a live stream if a violation of Facebook's community standards occurs, and it takes only one report for something to be reviewed.



That means if just one of the 40 or so people who watched the video of the girl being attacked, the video might have come down sooner.



"Live video on Facebook is a new and growing format," the company said in a statement about the technology and its community standards. "We've learned a lot over the past few months, and will continue to make improvements to this experience wherever we can."



But the company also pointed out the benefits of sharing live video of graphic content. "In many instances ... 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."



The girl's relative said he believes the group who attacked her went to school Monday, and he thinks one or more adults aided in her captivity.



"Obviously there are adults aiding and abetting them because they kids – they can't drive, they don't have a house. There are adults perpetuating this, enabling this criminal activity," King said.



He said one of the other painful issues for the family has been the fact that the girl was reported missing in November, which painted her to some as a chronic runaway. That couldn't be further from the truth, he said.



Because she is a good student and a responsible daughter, her mother became worried when she was an hour late getting home last fall, King said. A community alert went out but the girl returned home a short time later.



"That's not her, not even close," King said, saying the girl excelled in grade school and was accepted in one of the better high schools in Chicago. "But tell you what, even if she was, no one human deserves what happened to her. No matter what."