CHICAGO — Chicago police don’t believe a man beaten in an assault broadcast live on Facebook was targeted because he was white despite profanities made by the accused assailants about white people and President-elect Donald Trump, a police spokesman said Thursday.
Charges are expected later in the day against four black suspects, Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told The Associated Press.
This image from the video was posted on the Chicago Police Department’s Facebook page.
He acknowledged that the suspects made “terrible racist statements” during the assault, but that investigators believe the victim was targeted because he has “special needs,” not because of his race. But he said authorities are still looking at whether the attack falls under hate crimes statutes.
Guglielmi said it’s possible the suspects were trying to extort something from the victim’s family. Investigators said the victim was with his attackers, including one who was a classmate, for up to 48 hours, and the attack left him traumatized.
Excerpts of the video posted by Chicago media outlets show the victim with his mouth taped shut slumped in a corner as at least two assailants cut off his sweatshirt with a knife, as others taunt him off camera. The video shows a wound on the top of the man’s head, and one person pushing the man’s head with his or her foot. A red band also appears to be around the victim’s hands.
Off-camera, people can be heard using profanities about “white people” and Trump. At least one woman is shown in the video.
The victim is a suburban Chicago resident who Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said has “mental health challenges.” In a news conference Wednesday, Johnson described the video as “sickening.”
“It makes you wonder what would make individuals treat somebody like that,” he said.
The investigation began Monday after officers found a man who “was in distress and was in crisis” walking on a street on the city’s West Side, Capt. Steven Sasso said. The man was taken to a hospital and it was later discovered that he had been reported missing from an unidentified suburb.
At about the same time, police took several people into custody at a nearby address where they found signs of a struggle and property damage. Investigators determined that the missing man had been at the same address.
When asked Wednesday about the racial comments on the video, Cmdr. Kevin Duffin said the four people in custody were “young adults and they make stupid decisions.” Investigators will have to determine whether the racial remarks were “sincere or just stupid ranting and raving” when considering a potential hate crime charge, Duffin said.
The victim was with his attackers for 24 to 48 hours before police found him, and the episode has left him shaken, according to Duffin.
“He’s traumatized by the incident and it’s very tough to communicate with him at this point,” he said.
The victim was a classmate of one of the attackers and initially went with that person voluntarily, Duffin said.
Police haven’t identified the individuals in custody, but said three are Chicago residents and one is from suburban Carpentersville. Guglielmi said the suspects are all age 18 or older, and that police were working with prosecutors on Thursday “to build the strongest case.”
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Two attackers, a policeman and a court worker have been killed in a car bomb and gun assault on a courthouse in the Turkish city of Izmir, state media say.
A number of people were wounded in the explosion, some critically.
Images showed two cars ablaze and the body of one man carrying a weapon. Reports say a third attacker is being sought.
It is not clear who is responsible but Turkish officials say initial findings point to Kurdish rebels.
Some of Turkey’s big cities have been targeted recently both by so-called Islamic State (IS) and by Kurdish militants.
Turkey launched a military operation in Syria in August to push back IS and Kurdish forces from the Turkish border.
IS had said it was behind last weekend’s Istanbul nightclub attack that left 39 people dead.
Izmir’s Governor Erol Ayyildiz said a car had stopped in front of the Izmir courthouse, sparking an exchange with police, after which the car bomb detonated.
The attackers were armed with Kalashnikov rifles and grenades.
Reports of the number of people injured in the explosion ranged from five to 10.
A second car was destroyed in a controlled explosion, the governor said.
Deputy Prime Minister Veysi Kaynak said that, judging by the weapons found following the raid, a much larger attack was being planned.
No-one has yet said they carried out the attack but the governor said initial findings pointed to the involvement of Kurdish fighters from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) .
The PKK is fighting for an independent Kurdish state within Turkey.
It has carried out many attacks on Turkish security forces, particularly in the south-east.
In August a PKK car bomb in Cizre killed 11 policemen and injured 78. Another 10 soldiers and eight civilians died in a car bomb attack on a checkpoint in Durak in October.
In claiming the Istanbul nightclub attack, IS blamed Turkey’s military involvement in the Syrian civil war.
At least 36 people are now in custody in connection with the attack, including many in Izmir, although the main suspect remains at large.
A number of those arrested in Izmir are from the Uighur ethnic group. They are believed to have come from China’s Xinjiang region and have ties to the nightclub attacker, the state-run Anadolu news agency says.
Mr Kaynak said they were closing in on the gunman, saying he was possibly an ethnic Uighur.
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Police in Israel have arrested two people accused of inciting violence against judges who convicted a young soldier of manslaughter for shooting dead a wounded Palestinian attacker.
The military court’s decision to convict Sgt Elor Azaria on Wednesday has sharply divided opinion, with some threatening the judges online.
The three judges who ruled on the case have been given a security detail.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has backed calls for a pardon for Azaria.
Police arrested a man in Jerusalem and a woman in the southern town of Kiryat Gat whose social media posts amounted to «incitement to violence» against the judges, Reuters news agency quoted police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld as saying.
«Take a grenade and blow up the judge and scatter all of her parts in different places, let the dogs eat her,» the 22-year-old woman allegedly wrote on Facebook, Israeli media reports say.
The post refers to the head of the judges’ panel, Col Maya Heller, who has borne the brunt of the online backlash.
The second suspect, a 54-year-old man from Jerusalem, is alleged to have written «Col. Maya Heller will not finisher her year» in a post condemning the verdict.
The female suspect was released after questioning and banned from posting on Facebook for 30 days, the Jerusalem Post reports .
Other posts on social media depict the judges with Hitler moustaches. Several images in support of Azaria have been posted online alongside guns and military uniforms, with one sign reading: «Elor goes to prison — we all go to prison. »
Israel-Palestinians: Blame and bitterness keeping peace at bay
Benjamin Netanyahu backs pardon for soldier
The family of Elor Azaria have distanced themselves from social media posts threatening the judges with violence, issuing a statement saying they «completely condemn them», according to Ynetnews.
Elor Azaria was 19 when he shot Abdul Fatah al-Sharif, 21, in the head while he was lying immobile on a road in Hebron in the occupied West Bank on 24 March.
Sharif and another 21-year-old Palestinian, Ramzi Aziz al-Qasrawi, stabbed and wounded an Israeli soldier before troops opened fire on them, wounding Sharif and killing Qasrawi.
Footage of the scene several minutes later, filmed by a Palestinian and released by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, shows Sharif alive, wounded and now unarmed.
A soldier, identified as Azaria, is then seen cocking his rifle and fatally shooting Sharif in the head from several metres away.
The military court dismissed the soldier’s argument that the Palestinian still posed a danger because there might have been a suicide belt under his jacket.
«One cannot use this type of force, even if we’re talking about an enemy’s life,» the court said in its verdict.
The shooting happened during a wave of knife, gun and vehicle ramming attacks by Palestinians or Israeli Arabs in Israel and the West Bank that has killed at least 42 people since September 2015, according to the Israeli authorities.
The conviction has polarised Israel and sparked a fierce campaign in support of Azaria.
A poll by Israel’s Channel 2 on Wednesday found that 67% of respondents favoured a pardon for the soldier.
Palestinian papers welcome the verdict but predictably see Elor Azaria as a symbol of «crimes» committed against the Palestinians. Most reports refer to Azaria as a «murderer», with Hamas-run Filastin referring to Abdul Fatah al-Sharif as a «martyr».
Al-Hayat al-Jadidah says that Azaria «is not the only one deserving punishment but also his ‘political family'». Pro-Fatah Al-Quds believes calls for a pardon could be «considered an instigation to commit murder».
In Israel, the case continues to be divisive. «The court convicted him, but the public acquitted him,» Boaz Bismuth points out in pro-Netanyahu Yisrael Hayom.
Left-of-centre Ha’aretz is relieved that «this time, the rule of law won» instead of «mob rule». Still, it warns that «we must continue to be on guard».
But Yifat Erlich in centrist Yediot Aharonot laments Azaria’s treatment by the judges. They «did not see in front of them a young soldier who was sent on a difficult mission in an impossible reality,» she says.
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Keagan Dolly has lost his case against Mamelodi Sundowns at the Premier Soccer League’s Dispute Resolution Chamber but his representatives are still hopeful that a deal can be negotiated for the player to move to Europe this January transfer window.

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The United States has «much work to be done» to reform the criminal justice system and humanize the prison system, President Barack Obama said Thursday in a Harvard Law Review article.
In the 56-page article, the president defends his government’s actions during his eight-year term on a subject that was crucial for him before his arrival at the White House.
And he also a calls on President-elect Donald Trump — who is not mentioned in the article — to urgently pursue further reforms.
«We simply cannot afford to spend $80 billion annually on incarceration, to write off the seventy million Americans… with some form of criminal record, to release 600,000 inmates each year without a better program to reintegrate them into society, or to ignore the humanity of 2.2 million men and women currently in US jails and prisons,» Obama wrote.
The article, titled «The President’s Role in Advancing Criminal Justice Reform,» comes less than three weeks before Trump’s January 20 inauguration.
Obama, a former constitutional law professor, earned his law degree from Harvard University. He was the first African American president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review, a student-run law journal that publishes eight regular annual issues.
In the article, Obama talks about the reforms he would have liked to have been able to make more progress on, such as tightening gun control laws on individuals.
«There should be no mistake that gun violence is an epidemic playing out across the country every day,» he wrote.
«Over the past decade alone, more than 100,000 people have been killed as a result of gun violence — and millions more have been victims of assaults, robberies, and other crimes involving a gun. »
Over the same period, he said, «nearly 200,000 of our neighbors, friends, and family have committed suicide with a gun. »
The president also emphasized the problem of overpopulated prisons, estimated at 2.2 million people currently compared with less than half a million inmates in 1980.
Obama said he favored alternative punishments for small crimes. In recent months he commuted the sentences of hundreds of prisoners, most of them in jail for drug-related offenses.
Obama also called for the right to vote to be restored to criminals «who have paid their debt to society. »
«More than six million American — disproportionately people of color — cannot vote because of a felony conviction that disenfranchises them,» he wrote.

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KIDAPAWAN CITY, Philippines, Jan. 5 (UPI) — A Philippines Bureau of Jail Management and Penology official said 21 inmates who escaped from Kidapawan City’s North Cotabato District Jail have been recaptured.
«The Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines are working closely to capture the escapees. Hence, we appeal for calm and sobriety,» a spokesman for President Rodrigo Duterte said in a statement on Thursday.
Up to 158 inmates escaped after more than 100 armed men, who are suspected to be Muslim rebels, attacked the facility about 1:15 a.m. Wednesday, Philippines Bureau of Jail Management and Penology spokesman Xavier Solda said.
One jail officer was killed in the firefight that lasted for two hours. The inmates housed in the dilapidated, mostly open-air facility escaped through the back portion of the jail as the firefight occurred.
The group that took part in the attack seemed to be members of breakaway faction Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a group that sought peace with the government, acting Provincial Jail Warden Superintendent Peter Bungat said.
The breakaway faction is known as the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, The Philippine Star reported.
«It was not a jailbreak. It was a planned rescue of certain detainees. It’s to rescue their comrades under our custody. It is a rescue operation,» Bungat said.
The escapees «are mostly our Muslim brothers and most of them are [Moro Islamic Liberation Front] members,» Bungat added. «But the others likely just went along with the jailbreak. «

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