CHICAGO _ A Cook County judge ordered no bail on Friday for four people accused of broadcasting a live Facebook video of their alleged attack on a mentally disabled teen.
"I'm looking at each of you and wondering where was the sense of decency that each of you should have had?" said Judge Maria Kuriakos Ciesil. "I don't see it."
Prosecutors revealed in court that the 18-year-old victim suffers from schizophrenia and attention deficit disorder.
The racially charged video shows the assailants cutting the victim's scalp with a knife, punching and kicking him, and laughing as they repeatedly forced his head into a toilet.
Charged in the attack were Jordan Hill, 18, of Carpentersville; Tesfaye Cooper, 18, of Chicago; and sisters Brittany Covington, 18, and Tanishia Covington, 24, who lived in an apartment in the Chicago apartment where the assault allegedly took place.
The four _ who are all African-American _ were each charged with aggravated kidnapping, hate crime, aggravated unlawful restraint and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, according to police. Hill also was charged with robbery, possession of a stolen motor vehicle and residential burglary, while both Covingtons were charged with residential burglary, police said.
Police said all four have given statements admitting to their roles in the alleged attack.
Police said the victim, who is white, was found walking with Hill about 5:15 p.m. Tuesday. The victim appeared "injured" and "confused" and was wearing little clothing despite the freezing temperatures, police said.
"I observed him wearing a tank top, inside-out, backwards, jean shorts and sandals on," Harrison District Officer Michael Donnelly said at the news conference. "He was bloodied. He was battered. He was very discombobulated."
Police ran his name and discovered he'd been reported missing Monday by his parents, who said he disappeared after they dropped him off at a McDonald's in suburban Streamwood to meet up with Hill on Saturday. Police said Hill knew the victim because they had attended the same school in Aurora.
According to police, Hill had stolen a van in Streamwood before picking up the victim and passed it off as his own. He and the victim then drove to Chicago's West Side, visiting with friends for two days. The victim slept in the van before being brought to the Covington sisters' apartment on Tuesday, police said.
Hours into the visit, the victim and Hill got into a "play fight" that got out of hand, police said. The sisters got angry and tied the victim up, according to police.
The chilling Facebook video shows the victim crouched in a corner and mostly motionless with an expression of fear on his face. His mouth is taped shut and his hands and feet appear to be bound with orange electrical tape.
The 28-minute video is recorded by and focuses mostly on the face of Brittany Covington, who smokes what appears to be a blunt _ a cigar emptied and stuffed with marijuana _ while narrating some of the action. Liquor bottles appear to be sitting on a windowsill of the sparsely decorated apartment, along with a crumpled bag of chips.
As the group laughs and music plays in the background, Covington pans from her face to the victim and back. The two men can be seen cutting the victim's shirt with knives, then taking turns punching him and kicking his head. One of the men cuts the victim's hair and scalp with a knife, and the victim's head appears to be bleeding. Later, they pretend to tap ashes in the wound while Covington laughs.
As the attack continues, someone off camera shouts "F--- Donald Trump" and "F--- white people." About 15 minutes into the video, one of the men says the victim "represents Trump," and threatens to put him in the trunk of a car and "put a brick on the gas."
A later clip shows the victim kneeling over a toilet while his assailants force his head into the water and order him to drink.
At one point in the video, Covington can be heard telling the rest of the group that her little sister doesn't "think it's funny." She also expresses mock disappointment in the attention the live feed is getting on Facebook.
"Y'all ain't even commenting on my s---, man!" she says into the camera.
Police believe the victim was tied up for four or five hours. He said the attackers became distracted after a downstairs neighbor complained about the noise and threatened to call 911, prompting a confrontation.
According a police report, the female neighbor went to the sisters' apartment to ask them to keep the noise down, but an unknown woman who answered the door threw a punch at her but missed.
As the neighbor returned to her apartment, she heard someone say to go get a gun, the police said. Moments later, the Covington sisters and Cooper kicked down the neighbors' door, pulling it from its hinge, the report alleged.
The neighbor and her roommate fled out a back door and called 911. The Covingtons and Cooper gave chase down an alley but were spotted by police, according to the report.
During their absence, the victim managed to leave the apartment and was later found wandering the street with Hill.
After discovering he had been reported missing by his parents on Sunday, police took the victim to a hospital and reunited him with his family. About the same time, officers found signs of a struggle and property damage at the apartment on West Lexington that they linked to the attack, according to police.
Streamwood police, meanwhile, said the victim's parents had reported getting text messages from someone claiming to be holding their son captive. As Streamwood officers investigated the texts, they discovered the Facebook video.
Before the charges were announced Thursday, the video had became a national rallying cry for conservative pundits who tried to pin the blame for the attack on the Black Lives Matters movement. Debate also raged on social media and cable news stations about whether the police would consider the black-on-white assault a hate crime.
Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said there "was never a question" whether the case would be investigated as a hate crime, but police wanted to check all the facts before deciding anything based on emotion. He said the racial comments of the attackers and the disabilities of the victim both played a role in the decision.
"Let me be very clear, the actions in that video are reprehensible," Johnson said. "That, along with racism, have absolutely no place in the city of Chicago. Or anywhere else for that matter."
While the other charges filed against the four defendants Thursday have much more serious consequences _ aggravated battery with a deadly weapon carries up to 15 years behind bars _ it was the hate crime count that garnered the most attention.
Illinois' law, passed in 1991, states that a hate crime is committed if the offender launches an attack "by reason of" the person's race, religion, sexual orientation, nationality or physical or mental disability. Under the law, a judge can also consider the hate crime component after conviction on other counts to enhance whatever sentence is given.
