Four teenagers are expected to be charged Monday for their part in a weekend melee that killed a popular Elgin high school graduate and involved as many as 50 suburban high school students and their friends, authorities said Sunday.
Kane County Sheriff Kenneth Ramsey likened the early-morning fight Saturday to “something out of `West Side Story.'” Two large groups of people between 16 and 20 years old–one from St. Charles North High School, the other from Central High School in Burlington–goaded each other into a brawl involving baseball bats, two-by-fours and at least one stun gun, sheriff’s police said.
Nicholas Swanson, 20, of Elgin, a 2003 graduate of Larkin High School, rushed to the scene to help his younger brother and was fatally struck in the head by an object, possibly a board or a beer bottle, police said.
Kane County State’s Atty. John Barsanti said Sunday that he has authorized felony charges against four people. An 18-year-old man from St. Charles will face charges of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and mob action. An 18-year-old Geneva man will be charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, aggravated battery with great bodily harm and mob action.
A 19-year-old man from South Elgin was expected to be charged with mob action and obstructing justice, and an 18-year-old man from St. Charles will face a charge of mob action, Barsanti said.
All four are being held in the Kane County Jail.
The Tribune is not identifying the men until they are formally charged. Barsanti said the investigation was continuing and more serious charges related to Swanson’s death could be filed Monday.
The fight took place in a sparsely populated subdivision west of Elgin in rural Kane County at the T-shaped intersection of Corron Road and Oak Tree Lane. Dozens of family members and friends gathered at the scene Sunday to plant a cross honoring Swanson and to make sense of it all.
No one could.
Some said the fight started with a quarrel over a girl. Others said it had something to do with a high school feud. Everyone agreed it had a lot to do with underage drinking, hot tempers and pride. Everyone also agreed that Swanson shouldn’t have been there.
“There’s nothing bad about Nick,” said Jenni Lino, 17, of Elgin, a family friend. “He always put everybody before him. He never expected anything in return. He did everything for everyone as a favor.”
It was answering a call for help that led to Swanson’s death, police said.
Police said the fight was fueled in part by a night of drinking. One group attended a party near the fight scene, at the home of a teen whose parents were out of town, police said.
The tension between two core groups, one from St. Charles North and the other from Burlington Central, had festered over the last few weeks until it boiled over Friday night. Swanson’s brother Eric, 18, had friends at Central.
Eric Swanson said things escalated Friday night during a series of taunting cell phone calls exchanged by the two groups. He said that when he arrived at the scene of the fight shortly after midnight, he realized his side was outmanned, so he called his brother.
“My brother asked, `Are they messing with you too?'” Eric Swanson said.
He said yes, and his brother said he was on his way.
“He wasn’t afraid of anybody,” Eric Swanson said.
Dale Coughran, 43, an uncle of the Swanson brothers, said Nick Swanson left immediately, telling his mother, Debbie, that he would be right back.
“Who are you going to call when you are in trouble? Who are you going to call if you need help? You call your brother,” Coughran said.
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Almost as soon as he arrived on the scene and stepped out of his pickup, Swanson was struck on the back of the head, witnesses told police. No one else in the crowd was seriously hurt in what witnesses said was mostly a show of bravado.
At Sunday’s gathering to remember Swanson, the tearful crowd stood in near silence as the Swansons’ older brother, Brad, 25, and their father, Jon, and other family members dug a hole for a wooden cross. Scrawled on the cross were tributes and personal messages.
Friends and family members said Swanson often helped others and didn’t stick around for a thank-you.
“If he saw you snowed in, he’d plow you out and just wave as he drove away,” said Bob Pasholk of South Elgin, a family friend.
Swanson’s friends intend to honor him by pitching in and finishing work on a 1991 Ford Mustang he was restoring.
Adam Rayner, 18, a 2004 graduate of Larkin, said Swanson was like an older brother to him.
“He was always sticking up for us,” he said. “He had my back more than once I can remember.”
Jon Swanson said he was glad to hear that charges would be filed but hoped that the most responsible people would answer for his son’s death. “There’s nothing [Eric] should feel guilty about,” he said. “It was just an older brother trying to help out his younger brother. It’s family.”