Chicago judge denies bail for suspects in Facebook Live torture case

A Chicago judge on Friday denied bail for four African American teenagers who were accused of kidnapping and torturing a white man with special needs during the New Year's holiday.

"I'm looking at each of you and wondering where was the sense of decency that each of you should have had? I don't see it," Cook County Circuit Judge Maria Kuriakos Ciesil said at a court hearing.

The alleged perpetrators, identified as Jordan Hill, Tesfaye Cooper and sisters Brittany and Tanishia Covington were each charged with aggravated kidnapping, hate crime, aggravated unlawful restraint, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, and residential burglary on Thursday. Tanishia Covington is 24, while her sister and the two men are 18.

During the New Year's holiday, Hill took the 18-year-old victim to an apartment complex, where they met with the Covington sisters and Cooper on the third floor. One began a live Facebook video that showed the victim in the corner of the room with duct tape across his mouth and belts tied around his hands and neck.

"The victim was treated and released from an area hospital for cuts and lacerations to his head, face, and body, as well as a stab wound to his left arm. He also suffered bruising and lacerations to his back," said Cook County Assistant State's Attorney Erin Antonietti.

In the video, which has gone viral since the livestream of the incident, the alleged assailants can also be heard saying profanities against white people and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, which stirred racial tensions and led Andrew Holmes, an African American activist, to speak to press at the hearing.

"Just because they were African Americans, that does not represent, and shouldn't fall on every African American across the United States because they made a bad choice," Holmes said.

During the attack, Hill communicated with the victim's mother and demanded 300 U.S. dollars ransom to get her son back. The victim escaped after the alleged assailants chased witnesses from the second floor back to their apartment.

Although prosecutors charged the alleged perpetrators with hate crime, Chicago Police Department Superintendent Eddie Johnson said the attack itself did not seem to be politically motivated, despite the references to Trump.

The four accused are due back in court on Jan. 27.

source: Xinhua