Social media-obsessed criminals are often taking self-incrimination to a new level in the live-streaming age. Since 2016, several individuals in Chicago alone have been caught after recklessly streaming their crimes on Facebook. Most notably, four Chicago teens were charged for beating up another teenager with mental health challenges after they broadcast the assault on Facebook Live. Yet this trend shows no signs of stopping, and in mid-March, a group of males gang-raped a 15-year-old girl and broadcast the assault while as many as forty people watched but did not alert the police.
And if that wasn’t sickening enough, it turns out one of the alleged rapists is a 14-year-old boy who is being hit with charges of aggravated criminal assault, manufacturing of child pornography, and dissemination of child pornography, Chicago police said on Saturday. He’s not the only teen involved in the crime, for police are still looking for a 15-year-old boy and three other suspects.
The victim first went missing on March 19th but was found walking down the street near her home two days later.
Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson expressed his anger during a press conference over the lack of law enforcement action and the amount of cyberbullying that the girl has endured in the past few weeks:
“We’ve seen a couple acts in this city now in the last few months involving social media, and it just disgusts me that people could look at those videos and not pick up the phone and dial 911. It makes you wonder where are we going, what are we doing as a society?”
Since October, this is the fourth crime in Chicago to be broadcast on Facebook live.
(via USA Today & The Chicago Tribune)