Police have charged seven teenage boys in connection with a mob attack that severely injured an 18-year-old victim walking in Chicago's Chinatown neighborhood Friday evening.
As the Chicago Sun-Times reports, the youths reportedly began to trail the victim as he walked westbound along Cermak Road near Clark Street about 11 p.m. Friday. When the group began to shout that they wanted his cell phone, the victim dropped it on the ground and ran toward the nearby Cermak "L" train station. CTA surveillance cameras captured at least two youths making a "running leap" toward the victim before they "stomp[ed]" him" and "pounded the s--- out of him," as a police source described it.
The suspects, after battering the victim, ran onto the platform of the train station, only to be apprehended by the police, ABC Chicago reports. All seven suspects now face charges including robbery, mob action and aggravated robbery with great bodily harm, all felonies. Two of the 16-year-old suspects were charged as juveniles, however.
The victim suffered a fractured skull and 15 stitches on and near his left eyelid, according to the Sun-Times, and could still not see out of his left eye Sunday.
Photo by mootown via Flickr.
