Chicago police asked prosecutors Friday to file murder charges against seven people suspected in the fatal mob beating of two men whose van crashed into a group gathered around a South Side stoop.
The suspects–all males and alleged gang members ranging in age from 16 to 57–had not been formally charged late Friday, although police said they could be in court as early as Saturday afternoon on two counts each of first degree murder.
The males, two of whom are uncles of one of the three women injured by the van, were being held in the South Side’s Wentworth Area detective headquarters. Most of them have been there since shortly after the deaths Tuesday of Jack Moore, 62, and Anthony Stuckey, 49.
“We’re very satisfied we have a strong case here,” said Chief of Detectives Phil Cline.
Yet even into the night Friday detectives continued to quiz witnesses and consult with prosecutors about the suspects’ alleged roles in what Police Supt. Terry Hillard called the “savage and senseless beatings.”
Sources said the Cook County state’s attorney’s office wanted to charge all seven at the same time rather than file charges as each case wraps up.
Investigators believe that as many as 20 people stomped and beat Moore and Stuckey. But police said the stronger cases at this point are against the seven males in custody.
“I believe it was just a mob mentality that took over there,” Cline said. “And they just broke the windows of the [van], dragged these two individuals out and beat them to death.”
More Top Picks Best Cordless Drills For Diy Projects
Cline said the ages of the suspects are 16, 19, 20, 29, 43, 47 and 57. He said some have served time in prison.
Sources said there are three important witnesses that police are relying on–including a juvenile and an off-duty Cook County sheriff’s employee who said he tried to intervene and break up the melee, according to one source close to the investigation.
In addition, Cline said two of the suspects’ fingerprints were recovered from the van.
Cline would not detail what suspects told police but said they gave statements that put them at the scene.
Detectives have been working the case around the clock, sorting through the stories of witnesses and coaxing some reluctant neighbors in the Oakland community into telling what they knew.
There was much talk early in the case that police were stymied by the neighborhood’s silence. Hillard and Cline dismissed that Friday, saying the community helped pull the case together.
“I hope that as the three accident victims physically begin to heal, the neighborhood will begin to emotionally recover from this tragedy,” said Hillard, who grew up in the area.
Many of the people brought into the station for questioning, either as suspects or witnesses, had blood splattered on their clothes. Determining whose blood it was might help sort out who tended to the women after they were struck by the van and who participated in the beating.
The brother of one of the suspects, for instance, denied Friday that his brother had anything to do with the beating.
“He saw a young lady on the ground, he went to her and held her hand, and then [police] just grabbed him,” the brother said.
As police and prosecutors pieced together their case, Jenny Lawrence, one of the three injured women, was discharged from the hospital and made a brief stop at her home at the Lake Parc Towers near the site of the crash and beating.
Surrounded by family and friends to shield her from a group of reporters, Lawrence, 18, hustled into the building, then hopped into a waiting car and drove off.
Friday evening, Shani Lawrence (the name as published has been corrected in this text), 26, remained in critical condition in Mt. Sinai Hospital, and Andrea Long, 17, was in good condition in Northwestern Memorial Hospital, according to hospital spokesmen.
Moore and Stuckey, childhood friends, were moving some of Moore’s things in a rental van Tuesday evening when Moore tried to turn the van left onto Lake Park Avenue from 40th Street. The van went out of control and hopped a curb before crashing into the stone porch where a number of young adults from the neighborhood had gathered.
A fast-growing mob gathered at both sides of the van and pulled Moore and Stuckey through the van windows.
Over the next several minutes, the men were kicked and beaten with fists and stones that had been knocked loose from the porch.