Tag Archives: Hate Crime

U.S. prosecutors weigh death penalty for accused Pittsburgh synagogue shooter

Police vehicles are deployed near the vicinity of the home of Pittsburgh synagogue shooting suspect Robert Bowers' home in Baldwin borough, suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S., October 27, 2018. REUTERS/John Altdorfer


(Reuters) – The case of Robert Bowers, the man accused of massacring 11 people at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue last year was set to return to a federal courtroom on Thursday, as prosecutors weigh whether to pursue the death penalty against him.

Bowers, 46, is accused of bursting into the synagogue on Oct. 27 with a semi-automatic rifle and three handguns and shouting “all Jews must die” as he fired on congregants gathered for a Sabbath service.

Bowers has pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh to a 63-count indictment. Some of the charges, including murder as a hate crime, can carry the death penalty.

At Thursday’s hearing, prosecutors may discuss whether they will seek the death penalty. The session is a routine hearing to review the status of the case.

The United States is seeing a rise in the number of hate crimes and the number of hate groups, according to separate reports from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

One of Bowers’ attorneys, death penalty specialist Judith Clarke, said at his last hearing that the defense hoped to settle without trial. A negotiated plea deal could allow Bowers to avoid facing the risk of execution.

It was not clear whether Bowers would be present at the hearing.

Prosecutors say Bowers frequently posted anti-Semitic comments on right-wing social-media websites, including a post on the morning of the shooting in which he decried the work of a U.S. Jewish charity, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.

Among those killed in the attack were a 97-year-old woman, two brothers in their 50s and a married couple in their 80s. Two civilians and five police officers were wounded before the gunman was shot by police and surrendered.

Ahead of Thursday’s hearing, Bowers filed a motion to the court through his lawyers, which Judge Donetta Ambrose allowed to be sealed from public view per Bowers’ request.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Scott Malone and Cynthia Osterman)

Accused California gunman pleads not guilty in synagogue murder, mosque arson

A crowd watches on screen the funeral for Lori Gilbert-Kaye, the sole fatality of the Saturday synagogue shooting at the Congregation Chabad synagogue in Poway, north of San Diego, California, U.S. April 29, 2019. REUTERS/John Gastaldo

By Jennifer McEntee

SAN DIEGO (Reuters) – A 19-year-old man accused of killing one worshipper and wounding three others in a shooting spree in a California synagogue pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to murder and attempted-murder charges in an attack prosecutors are treating as a hate crime.

John Earnest, arrested shortly after Saturday’s bloodshed at the Chabad of Poway synagogue north of San Diego, also pleaded not guilty to a single count of arson on a house of worship stemming from a nearby mosque that was set on fire in March.

Appearing behind a glass partition for his arraignment in San Diego County Superior Court on Tuesday afternoon, Earnest stood expressionless and spoke faintly as he gave one-word answers to procedural questions put to him by the judge.

The lanky defendant – a nursing student enrolled at California State University at San Marcos – wore dark-rimmed glasses with his hair combed straight forward.

Ordering him to remain held without bail, Judge Joseph Brannigan said Earnest would pose “an obvious and extraordinary risk” to the public if he were to be released pending trial.

The proceeding was attended by six Hasidic Jewish men who sat in the front row of the courtroom, dressed in the traditional dark garb of the Jewish ultra-Orthodox faithful.

Authorities said Earnest stalked into the Poway synagogue during Sabbath prayers on the last day of the week-long Jewish Passover holiday and opened fire with an assault-style rifle, killing 60-year-old worshipper Lori Gilbert-Kaye

Three others were wounded in the attack, including the rabbi, who was shot in the hand and lost an index finger.

John Earnest, accused in the fatal shooting at the Chabad of Poway synagogue, stands in court during an arraignment hearing in San Diego, California, U.S., April 30, 2019. Nelvin C. Cepeda/Pool via REUTERS

John Earnest, accused in the fatal shooting at the Chabad of Poway synagogue, stands in court during an arraignment hearing in San Diego, California, U.S., April 30, 2019. Nelvin C. Cepeda/Pool via REUTERS

RAMBLING MANIFESTO

The gunman, whose weapon apparently jammed, was chased out of the temple by a former Army sergeant in the congregation, then sped away in a car, escaping an off-duty U.S. Border Patrol agent who shot at the getaway vehicle but missed the suspect. Earnest pulled over and surrendered to police soon afterward.

Authorities said later they believed Earnest was the author of a rambling, violently anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim “manifesto” found posted on the internet under his name.

In it, the writer claimed responsibility for a pre-dawn arson fire on March 24 that damaged the Islamic Center of Escondido, a town about 15 miles (24 km) north of Poway, and professed to have drawn his inspiration from the gunman who killed 50 people at two mosques earlier that month in New Zealand.

Saturday’s bloodshed near San Diego came six months to the day after 11 worshippers were fatally shot at a Pittsburgh synagogue in a massacre that ranks as the deadliest ever on American Jewry. The accused gunman in that attack was arrested.

Authorities said Earnest had no prior criminal record.

Besides the charge of committing arson at a place of worship, he is charged with one count of murder and three counts of attempted murder. The criminal complaint, filed on Monday, also alleges the synagogue shooting was perpetrated as a hate crime. His public defender entered not guilty pleas to all charges on his behalf during Tuesday’s hearing.

If convicted, he would face life in prison without parole, or the death penalty, the district attorney’s office said.

District Attorney Summer Stephan told reporters afterward Earnest had legally purchased the murder weapon, although current California law generally prohibits rifles and shotguns from being sold to anyone under 21. The state’s legal age limit for such firearms was raised from 18 starting this year.

In addition to the murder weapon, Stephan said, police found five loaded ammunition magazines and another 50 rounds of bullets in Earnest’s vehicle when he was arrested.

(Reporting by Jennifer McEntee in San Diego; Additional reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta and Peter Szekely in New York; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Bill Tarrant, Jonathan Oatis and Peter Cooney)

Police examine motive of man accused of deadly California synagogue attack

A car, allegedly used by the gunman who killed one at the Congregation Chabad synagogue in Poway, is pictured, few hundred feet from the Interstate 15 off-ramp north of San Diego, California, U.S. April 27, 2019. REUTERS/John Gastaldo

By Alex Dobuzinskis

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Police were examining the motive on Monday of the man accused of a deadly shooting at a synagogue in Southern California, after determining the 19-year-old gunman acted alone.

The gunman walked into the Chabad of Poway in suburban San Diego on Saturday and killed one woman and wounded three other people inside, using an assault-style rifle, police said.

The Poway mayor over the weekend called the shooting a hate crime. The accused gunman, John T. Earnest, appears to be the author of an online manifesto who claimed to have previously set fire to a mosque and drawn inspiration from last month’s mass shooting at two mosques in New Zealand that killed 50 people.

Saturday’s bloodshed in Poway came at the end of the week-long Jewish holiday of Passover and unfolded six months to the day after 11 worshippers were killed by a gunman who stormed the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.

Earnest, who has been held without bail, is scheduled to appear in a San Diego court on Wednesday to face a charge of murder and three counts of attempted murder, according to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department website.

The gunman is believed to have carried out the shooting without support from anyone else, San Diego Sheriff Bill Gore said in a statement on Sunday.

“We are continuing to explore every investigative avenue to bring out all the facts in this case,” Gore said.

Earnest fled in a car as an off-duty U.S. Border Patrol agent, who had been at the synagogue, fired at his vehicle. The teenager later called police to surrender.

Authorities are investigating Earnest’s possible involvement in the March 24 pre-dawn arson fire at the Islamic Center of Escondido, a town about 15 miles (24 km) north of Poway, Gore said.

The slain victim, Lori Kaye, was a founding member of the Chabad of Poway congregation, Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, who was among the three wounded victims, told reporters.

Another survivor, Israel Dahan, whose 8-year-old daughter was wounded, told Israel Radio on Sunday that the attacker’s gun jammed.

Worshipper Oscar Stewart, 51, rushed the gunman and chased him outside before another person, the off duty Border Patrol agent, opened fire, Gore said.

Stewart is a U.S. Army veteran and works as an electrician, the Los Angeles Times reported.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Toby Chopra)

Son of sheriff’s deputy charged with burning three Louisiana black churches

By Peter Szekely

(Reuters) – The son of a sheriff’s deputy was charged with burning down three predominately black churches in southern Louisiana over the past two weeks, officials said on Thursday, saying they acted quickly out of concern he would strike again.

Holden Matthews, 21, a white resident of St. Landry Parish, the county where the fires occurred, was charged with three counts of simple arson on religious buildings, each count of which carries a prison sentence of up to 15 years, Louisiana Fire Marshal H. “Butch” Browning said.

“We are extremely, unequivocally confident that we have the person who is responsible for these tragic crimes on these three churches,” Browning told a news briefing in Opelousas, Louisiana, about 60 miles (97 km) west of Baton Rouge.

Matthews, the son of Deputy Roy Matthews of the St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office, was taken into custody late Wednesday, about 12 hours after he was identified as a suspect, Browning said.

“We felt that other crimes were imminent,” he said. “In an abundance of public safety, we quickly secured warrants and took him into custody.”

The three churches destroyed by the fires have mostly black congregations, raising authorities’ suspicion that the fires may be racially motivated hate crimes. No federal hate crime charges have been filed against Matthews so far.

Noting the history of black church burnings in the South, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said the current episode was “especially painful because it reminds us of a very dark past of intimidation and fear.”

Edwards said the crimes appeared to be unrelated to the March 31 burning of a predominantly white church in another parish.

While investigators were still exploring motives, Browning said that Matthews had “a relationship with a type of music called black metal,” an extreme subgenre of heavy metal. Black metal has an association with church burnings in other parts of the world, he said.

Officials, including those from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, said the investigation was ongoing.

The fires set between March 26 and April 4 destroyed St. Mary Baptist Church in Port Barre, and Greater Union Baptist Church and Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in Opelousas.

St. Landry Parish Sheriff Bobby Guidroz said he believed his deputy was unaware of Holden Matthews’ involvement in the fires.

“Roy Matthews is one of my best friends, a great deputy,” Guidroz said.

(Reporting by Peter Szekely in New York; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

Chicago will sue actor Jussie Smollett after he refuses to pay for police overtime

FILE PHOTO: Actor Jussie Smollett makes a court appearance at the Leighton Criminal Court Building in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., March 14, 2019. E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune/Pool via REUTERS

By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Chicago will sue actor Jussie Smollett for the costs of police overtime spent investigating his claims that he was the victim of a hate crime, which prosecutors say were false, a city official said on Thursday.

The lawsuit was being prepared after Smollett, 36, refused a demand by the city for $130,000, said Bill McCaffrey, a spokesman for the city’s Department of Law.

“Mr. Smollett has refused to reimburse the City of Chicago for the cost of police overtime spent investigating his false police report on January 29, 2019, McCaffrey said. “The Law Department is now drafting a civil complaint that will be filed in the Circuit Court of Cook Country.”

Smollett, who is black and gay, touched off a social media fire storm by telling police on Jan. 29 that two apparent supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump struck him, put a noose around his neck and poured bleach over him.

But the actor, best known for his role as a gay musician on the Fox Television hip-hop drama “Empire,” was charged in February with staging the incident himself and filing a false police report.

Last week prosecutors dropped all charges against Smollett, infuriating police and outgoing Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Prosecutors said they stood by the accusation but that an agreement by Smollett to forfeit his $10,000 bond was a just outcome.

The case file was sealed by a Chicago judge, which critics suggested was evidence of a cover-up.

The actor’s criminal defense attorney, Mark Geragos, could not be reached for comment.

On Monday, some 300 people, including off-duty Chicago police officers, took to the streets to protest, calling on Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx to resign over her handling of the case.

Foxx, who recused herself from the case before charges were filed, citing conversations she had with one of his relatives, has defended her actions and those of her prosecutors.

Smollett was written out of the final two episodes of “Empire” this season after he was charged with staging the hate crime. Fox executives have not said if he will return should the show be renewed for another year.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Bill Tarrant and Lisa Shumaker)

Chicago mayor demands answers after Smollett hoax charges dropped

FILE PHOTO: Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel speaks during an interview at City Hall in Chicago, Illinois, U.S. June 14, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Lott/File Photo

(Reuters) – Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said on Wednesday he wanted to “find out what happened” to cause prosecutors to abruptly drop charges against “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett, who was accused of staging a hoax hate crime to boost his career.

The saga began in January when the actor, who is black and gay, said two men had attacked him on a Chicago street, putting a noose around his neck and shouting racist and homophobic slurs.

Prosecutors on Feb. 21 accused him of paying two brothers, Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo, $3,500 to carry out an attack they called a hoax to advance his career but abruptly dropped the charges on Tuesday.

“Let’s get to the bottom of this,” Emanuel said in an ABC News interview. “Let’s find out what happened.”

Emanuel said Smollett had “abused” the city of Chicago, a day after the actor walked out of court saying he had been vindicated in insisting he had not staged a racist assault against him in January.

Smollett, who plays a gay musician on Fox’s hip-hop TV drama “Empire,” had been charged with 16 felony counts of disorderly conduct alleging he gave false accounts of an attack on him to police investigators.

On Tuesday, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office said it stood by its accusation against Smollett but was dropping all the charges, saying the actor’s prior community service and his agreeing to forfeit his $10,000 bond was a just outcome.

“The state’s attorney’s office is saying he’s not exonerated, he actually did commit this hoax,” Emanuel said in the ABC interview. “He’s saying he’s innocent and his words are true. They better get their stories straight, because this is making fools of all us.”

Chicago’s chief prosecutor, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, defended her office’s decision in an interview with WBEZ on Wednesday as proportionate to the charges.

Foxx had recused herself from the case prior to Smollett’s being charged because of conversations she had about the incident with one of Smollett’s relatives, according to her spokesman.

“There’s some people who were never gonna be satisfied unless Mr. Smollett spent many nights in prison, and then there were others who believed that the charging of 16 counts of disorderly conduct was excessive,” she said in the interview. She said the charges Smollett faced were unlikely to have led to a prison sentence if he had been convicted.

“What I can tell you is that most people who come through the criminal justice system don’t give up $10,000 of their hard-earned money, or engage in volunteer services connected with an alleged offense, without viewing that as a way of being held accountable,” she said.

Smollett initially earned widespread sympathy from celebrities and some Democratic presidential candidates over his account of the alleged assault.

The Chicago Police Department released what it said were all its records from the case on Wednesday, totaling 61 pages, with some names and other personal details redacted.

The records conformed with the information included in court filings, including summaries of interviews with the Osundairo brothers who said Smollett gave them a $3,500 check and $100 in cash to buy the rope, ski masks, gloves and red baseball caps used in the attack.

On Tuesday, Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson also criticized the prosecutor’s decision, saying it did not serve justice.

Smollett had pleaded not guilty to the charges, and told reporters on Tuesday he had been “truthful and consistent” in maintaining his innocence.

His lawyers said he hopes to move on with his acting career, but it remains unclear whether he will return to “Empire” after being written out of the last two episodes of the most recent season.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Bill Berkrot and Richard Chang)

Deadly blast in Texas believed linked to earlier explosion

An FBI agent exits her car after arriving at the scene of an explosion near north Galindo street. Police investigators are at the home where a 17-year-old boy was killed and a woman injured in a package bomb explosion in Austin, Texas, U.S., March 12, 2018. REUTERS/Sergio Flo

By Jon Herskovitz

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – A package bomb that killed a Texas teenager and injured a woman on Monday was believed to be linked to a deadly blast in the state’s capital city earlier this month, according to police, who were also investigating a third explosion that injured one.

Austin police said Monday’s package bomb that killed a 17-year-old, as well as a March 2 explosion that killed a man, were being investigated as homicides. The two homes that received the packages belonged to African-Americans.

“We cannot rule out that hate crime is at the core of this but we are not saying that that is the cause,” Austin Police Chief Brian Manley told a news conference.

Isiah Guerrero, 15, gives an interview to the media in the neighbourhood of the scene of an explosion. Police investigators are at the home where a 17-year-old boy was killed and a woman injured in a package bomb explosion in Austin, Texas, U.S., March 12, 2018. REUTERS/Sergio Flores

Police said they responded to a second explosion of a package on Monday at another home in which a woman was injured. A police spokeswoman was unable to confirm if it was related to the other two explosions.

Monday’s blasts were in homes about 4 miles (6 km) apart in east Austin, while the March 2 blast occurred at house in the city’s northeast Harris Ridge neighborhood.

The March 2 blast, which killed a 39-year-old man, was initially investigated as a suspicious death but is now being treated as a homicide.

In the deadly blast on Monday, the 17-year-old resident found a package in front of his house in the morning and brought it into the kitchen, where it exploded, Manley said. The woman, in her 40s, was taken to an area hospital with injuries that were not thought to be life-threatening.

“We are looking at these incidents as being related,” Manley said, adding that federal investigators have joined the case.

After the March 2 explosion, Austin police said they had no indication the blast was related to terrorism.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz and Andrew Hay; Editing by Susan Thomas and Tom Brown)

Kansas man charged in shooting of two Indians in possible hate crime

A still image taken from a video shows relatives of Srinivas Kuchibhotla, who was shot dead in a possible hate crime in Kansas state of the U.S., siting in their home in Hyderabad, Telangana, India, February 24, 2017. ANI/via Reuters TV

By Brendan O’Brien and Aditya Kalra

MILWAUKEE/NEW DELHI (Reuters) – A Kansas man was charged on Thursday with shooting to death an Indian man and wounding a second Indian man and an American in a bar, and federal authorities are investigating the incident as a possible hate crime.

The killing led news bulletins in India and drew strong reactions on social media, where people voiced concern that U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America First” position on immigration and jobs has fueled a climate of intolerance.

Adam Purinton, 51, was charged in Johnson County, Kansas, with one count of premeditated first degree murder and two counts of attempted premeditated first degree murder, Johnson County District Attorney Stephen Howe told a news conference.

Purinton is accused of shooting and killing Srinivas Kuchibhotla, 32, and wounding Alok Madasani, also 32, in the Austins Bar and Grill in Olathe, Kansas, on Wednesday evening, according to a statement from the Olathe Police Department.

At least one bystander told the Kansas City Star the man shouted “get out of my country” before shooting the Indian men. He is also accused of wounding American Ian Grillot, 24, who was shot when he tried to intervene.

“People call me a hero … I was just doing what anyone should have done for any other human being,” Grillot said in a video interview released by the hospital where he was undergoing treatment for gunshot wounds to the hand and chest.

At Kuchibhotla’s family home near Hyderabad, a tech hub where U.S. companies Microsoft, Google and Facebook have operations, family members backed government calls to ensure the safety of Indians living in the United States.

“The government should voice out this strongly because our brothers, sisters and our relatives are there,” his brother Venu Madhav told Reuters Television.

District attorney Howe would not elaborate on the details of the incident or the motive for the shooting.

“We want to be able to be sure about our facts versus speculation. So we are not prepared at this point to talk about the particular facts of the case because this is still very fresh,” Howe said.

Trump’s election was welcomed at first by many in India who interpreted his calls to restrict immigration by Muslims as signaling support toward Hindu-majority India, which has been at odds for decades with Pakistan, its mainly Muslim neighbor.

But the Trump administration may also have skilled Indian workers like Kuchibhotla in mind as it considers curbing the H-1B visa program, worrying both India’s $150 billion IT services industry and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.

“Don’t be shocked! Be angry! Trump is spreading hate. This is a hate crime! RIP #SrinivasKuchibhotla,” Siddharth, a well-known South Indian actor who uses one name, tweeted to his 2.6 million followers in remarks echoed across social media.

“INCREDIBLE SHOCK”

Kavipriya Muthuramalingam, a friend and former colleague of the shooting victim, has raised more than $250,000 via a crowd-funding website to help his family with funeral and other expenses.

“This came as an incredible shock – as he is one of the most gentle, nicest human beings you would meet,” Muthuramalingam said. “He was non-confrontational, non-controversial, easy-going, always smiling.”

Kuchibhotla’s Facebook page, where he called himself “Srinu”, said he joined U.S. technology company Garmin in 2014 from Rockwell Collins.

He took a master’s in electronics from the University of Texas in El Paso from 2005-07, according to LinkedIn. He was married but had no children.

India’s Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj, who has made a priority of supporting India’s diaspora in times of trouble, tweeted that she was “shocked” at the shooting and expressed her condolences to the bereaved family.

Two officials from the Indian consulate in Houston were going to Kansas to meet the injured men and police to “ascertain more details of the incident and monitor follow up action”, Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesman Vikas Swarup said in a statement.

The U.S. embassy in New Delhi condemned the shooting.

“The United States is a nation of immigrants and welcomes people from across the world to visit, work, study, and live,” Chargé d’Affaires MaryKay Carlson said in a statement.

“U.S. authorities will investigate thoroughly and prosecute the case, though we recognize that justice is small consolation to families in grief.”

The FBI was investigating whether the incident was a hate crime.

“We are looking at whether the crime was committed via bias motivation. We are really at the preliminary stage at looking at every aspect,” said Eric Jackson, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Kansas City Field Office, during the news conference.

The U.S. attorney office in Kansas and the U.S. Department of Justice will also evaluate the case as more evidence is gathered, Tom Beall, acting U.S. attorney for the District of Kansas said, according to the Kansas City Star.

The suspect fled from the bar on foot and was apprehended five hours later at an Applebee’s in Clinton, Missouri, where he reportedly told an employee that he needed a place to hide out because he had killed two Middle Eastern men, the Star reported.

Purinton, who was not armed, was arrested without incident, the newspaper reported. The Navy veteran was being held on a $2 million bond in the Henry County Jail, where he waived his right to fight extradition to Johnson County.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee and Aditya Kalra in New Delhi; Editing by Douglas Busvine, Robert Birsel, Larry King)

Four charged with hate crimes over Chicago beating shown on Facebook

By Timothy Mclaughlin

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Four African-Americans accused of attacking an 18-year-old man with special needs while making anti-white racial taunts and broadcasting the assault on Facebook were charged with hate crimes in Illinois on Thursday.

Jordan Hill, Tesfaye Cooper, and sisters Brittany and Tanishia Covington were each charged with aggravated kidnapping, hate crime, aggravated unlawful restraint, and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. Tanisha Covington was the eldest at 24, while her sister and the two men were 18 years old.

“This should never happen,” David Boyd, the victim’s brother-in-law, said at a news conference Thursday. He said the family was overwhelmed by support expressed on social media.

The incident, part of which was streamed on the service Facebook Live on Tuesday, drew the attention of U.S. President Barack Obama, who called it “terrible” in an interview with Chicago’s ABC-TV affiliate.

“Part of what technology allows us to see now is the terrible toll that racism and discrimination and hate takes on families and communities,” Obama said Thursday.

The victim, who is white, has “mental health challenges,” Chicago police said. He was not identified.

Police said the victim knew at least one of his alleged torturers, meeting Hill at a McDonald’s restaurant in a northwestern suburb of Chicago late last week.

When he did not return home the next day, the victim’s parents reported him missing. He was found by Chicago police days later, on Tuesday.

Police said Hill picked the victim up at the McDonald’s in a stolen van. While the victim’s parents reported him missing, their son and Hill spent the next two days together, visiting friends and sleeping in the van.

On Tuesday, a “play fight” between the two in the Covington sisters’ apartment escalated, Chicago Police Commander Kevin Duffin said at the news conference.

The victim was tied up for four or five hours, gagged and beaten. His scalp was cut and he was forced to drink toilet water, Duffin said.

In the video, the attackers could be heard making comments about “white people” as the victim cowered in a corner, his mouth taped shut.

At least one of the attackers could also be heard saying obscenities about President-elect Donald Trump. Police said they did not know whether the victim was a Trump supporter.

Police officers located the victim on Tuesday after neighbors complained about noise coming from the apartment. He was outside in freezing weather wearing only a tank top, shorts and sandals, police said.

He was taken to a hospital and later released. Members of the public alerted investigators to the Facebook Live video.

The four suspects are due to appear in a Chicago court on Friday.

(Additional reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, Calif.; Editing by Alan Crosby and Matthew Lewis & Simon Cameron-Moore)

Accused church gunman Dylann Roof to represent himself

Dylann Storm Roof appears by closed-circuit television at his bond hearing in Charleston, South Carolina, U.S.

By Harriet McLeod

CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters) – Dylann Roof, an avowed white supremacist accused of murdering nine black parishioners at a historic Charleston, South Carolina church last year, began acting as his own lawyer at his federal death penalty proceedings on Monday.

U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel granted Roof’s request to represent himself at trial but told the defendant it was unwise to cast aside his seasoned attorneys.

Roof, 22, did not say why he wanted to take the lead in his case. The move could give him the opportunity to question the survivors of the shooting if they are called as witnesses.

Roof also faces 33 counts of hate crimes, obstruction of religion and firearms charges stemming from the shooting, which occurred during a Bible study session at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in June 2015.

Prosecutors, who say he planned the attack for months, are seeking the death penalty.

Gergel ruled on Friday that Roof was mentally competent to stand trial, following concerns raised by defense attorneys about their client’s ability to understand the nature of the proceedings against him and to assist in his own defense.

That decision paved the way for jury selection to resume on Monday after a temporary delay this month for a competency evaluation and hearing. Then, in another twist, Gergel said he received a motion from Roof late Sunday seeking to represent himself.

In a Charleston courtroom, the judge asked Roof a series of questions to determine whether he understood the charges, the punishment he faced and the trial duties he was undertaking.

Roof, dressed in a striped gray and white prison jumpsuit, answered “Yes” or “Yes, sir.”

“I find that his decision is knowing, intelligent and voluntary,” the judge said.

Gergel instructed Roof’s legal team to remain on standby, including lead defense lawyer David Bruck, who is considered an expert in death penalty cases.

Once jury questioning got under way, Roof mostly responded “no” each time the judge asked if he had any follow-up questions or objections to potential jurors.

Gergel dismissed several people who expressed conflicted feelings about capital punishment or said a death sentence should always be the penalty for murder.

One woman said she could be fair and impartial but admitted being sickened by the crime, which shook the country and stoked a debate over U.S. race relations. Gergel struck the woman from serving as a juror.

Twelve jurors and six alternates will be chosen to hear testimony.

(Reporting by Harriet McLeod; Writing by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Steve Orlofsky)