A second suspect being sought by Chicago police in the rape of a teenage girl on Facebook Live turned himself in to authorities on Monday, two days after a 14-year-old boy was arrested in connection with the assault.
The second arrest, a 15-year-old boy was accompanied by his mother and was questioned before being taken into custody and held in juvenile detention, according to a tweet from Chicago police spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi. Both teens were charged as juveniles and face charges of criminal sexual assault and manufacturing and distributing of child pornography.
The younger boy was scheduled for a court appearance on April 1, but a judge waived it until April 28, according to the Chicago Tribune. He is currently in custody at a detention center.
Officials are attempting to identify the others seen in the video committing the assault, but the girl is so traumatized by what she went through that the case is proceeding slowly, according to Cmdr. Brendan Deenihan. She has also reportedly been the target of social media bullying and others have taunted her family.
“She’s just having such a difficult time even communicating what occurred to her,” Deenihan said at a Sunday news conference, the Tribune reported.
Police Supt. Eddie Johnson, at the same news conference expressed disgust over the sexual assault incident and another that took place earlier this year when a mentally disabled man was kidnapped and his assailants streamed his assault on Facebook Live.
“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,” Johnson said.
The four people involved in the earlier incident were charged with hate crimes, kidnapping and torture.
