On Tuesday, Chicago police became aware of a disturbing Facebook video showing a group of black assailants holding a white, mentally disabled individual hostage, torturing him, and shouting phrases like “F**k Trump!” and “F**k white people!”
Police came across the victim on Tuesday afternoon as he was walking down the street in the city’s West Side. Officers said he was disoriented and injured. They took him to be treated and began unraveling the story of his abduction and torture.
“The officers […] were able to put together that the individual they encountered in distress was missing from one of our suburbs and considered an ‘endangered missing,” said Chicago Police Lieutenant Stephen Sasso.
Sasso said that the location at which the 18-year-old man was found was the same as the address where cops had taken some people into custody in an unrelated matter. Ultimately, police realized that those individuals – two males and two females – were involved in abducting the young man.
“It’s sickening,” Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said of the Facebook video. “It makes you wonder what would make individuals treat somebody like that. I’ve been a cop for 28 years and I’ve seen things that you shouldn’t see. It still amazes me how you still see things that you just shouldn’t.”
The video lasts about thirty minutes. Filmed by a young black woman, it depicts the assailants kicking and punching the victim, cursing him, and forcing him to denounce President-elect Donald Trump. At one point, the sick perpetrators force the young man to drink from a toilet. In the course of the video, the assailants comment on how they want it to go viral.
Police downplayed the Trump aspect of the video at a Wednesday press conference, suggesting that the teens were just using the name to increase the popularity of the video.
“You know, although they are adults, they’re 18,” said Commander Kevin Duffin. “Kids make stupid decisions – I shouldn’t call them kids, they’re legally adults, but they’re young adults and they make stupid decisions.”
Johnson agreed: “I think some of it is just stupidity, people just ranting about something that they think might make a headline.”
Cops believe the victim knew one of the perpetrators from school and willingly got into his car back in the suburbs. As of Wednesday, they were unwilling to commit to any specific charges, be it for kidnapping or hate crimes.
The chief responsibility for a crime always lies with the criminal. But since the perpetrators used racist, anti-Trump language on the video, both President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton should be asked to denounce this crime. If it’s on Trump to disavow hate crimes committed in his name, then why would it not be on his political enemies to do the same?
Of course, we know that’s not going to happen. And we know why.
And really, that’s fine. It shouldn’t happen. Obama and Hillary have nothing to do with this sick incident.
Just like Donald Trump has nothing to do with idiots who commit violent acts in his name.
But if we’re still hoping for mainstream media objectivity at this late date, we really must be foolish optimists.
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