A group of 11 Chicago area teenagers have been hit with felony charges, including hate crimes, after allegedly using dating apps to lure and then beat two men in an act inspired by a social media trend, police said.
The suspects, who remained unidentified because they are all minors, are implicated in two separate attacks that took place on the evening of July 8, the Mount Prospect Police Department said in a press release.
The first victim to make a report was a 41-year-old man who came into the police station at approximately 9:45 p.m., saying he had been battered by a group of male teenagers in a parking lot at 606 West Northwest Highway earlier that night.
The man said he had arranged to meet someone from a dating app at the location but was verbally and physically confronted by the group of teens, who also allegedly damaged the vehicle he arrived in.
The victim relayed that the group then followed his car in their vehicles as he fled before he was eventually able to get away.
Less than ten minutes after the 41-year-old came into the department, Mount Prospect officers responded to a similar report of a 23-year-old man being assaulted in the 400 block of See Gwun Avenue, the release stated.
Upon arrival, the second victim told police he was also beaten by a group of teenagers, who also damaged his vehicle, after attempting to meet someone he connected with on a dating app.
The man said that while he was being verbally accosted and battered, one of the teens slashed his tires.
The victim said he was able to get back into his vehicle and drive to a nearby home to ask the residents to call 911.
He was transported to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
The subsequent investigation, which involved reviewing surveillance cameras that captured the incident at 606 West Northwest Highway, led to police identifying the 11 suspects.
“The investigation also found one of the offenders yelled a racial and another derogatory term during the incident, resulting in that juvenile offender being charged additionally with two counts of Hate Crime,” police said.
The juvenile suspects, all charged with aggravated battery, criminal damage to property, and mob action, willingly turned themselves into the authorities in November and were transported to the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center in Chicago.
While police did not specify what slurs were yelled during the incidents or what apps were used to lure the men, they said that “some of the teenage offenders got this idea through a viral social media trend they saw online.”
“We are asking parents to take these incidents as an opportunity to talk with their teenage children about the seriousness of actively participating in these types of trends they see on social media,” Mount Prospect Police chief Michael Eterno said.