News 
- Created on 20 May 2013
Teens Accused of Gang Rape, Posting Video on Facebook
Three Chicago teens accused of gang-raping a 12-year-old girl at gunpoint and posting the video to Facebook will face charges as adults, Cook County prosecutors announced Friday.
A judge ordered Justin Applewhite, 16, Kenneth Brown, 15, and Scandale Fritz, 16, each held on $900,000 bond. The teens each face one count of aggravated criminal sexual assault.
The alleged sexual assaults took place at Fritz's house Dec. 15, 2012. Fritz had the girl meet him at home, and then took her into the basement and allegedly raped her. According to court documents, Fritz threatened the girl, who had pleaded him to stop, by showing her a gun, and is alleged to have later filmed Applewhite and Brown raping her.
The girl went to the hospital and notified police the next day, according to Chicago Fox affiliate WFLD. On Dec. 17, the video of the rape was posted first to Brown's Facebook page, and then to the other boy's pages.
Prosecutors said all three boys appear on the footage, in which the girl demands them to stop. Brown reportedly held a gun during sex, and the boys could be heard shouting gang slogans.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Fritz provided prosecutors with a handwritten account of the events.
Read more at the Huffington Post.
(Photo: Screengrab Fox 32 News.)
- Created on 20 May 2013
Red Line Construction Hits CTA Riders
The Chicago Transit Authority's crumbling Red Line tracks south of Roosevelt Road shut down Sunday for the largest construction project in the transit authority's history, and riders have mixed reviews on navigating the closures.
Commuters must find an alternate way to get where they are going for the next five months via new routes on different buses and trains. For most riders, that means walking to a new train station on the Green Line, which essentially will replace the Red Line from Roosevelt to Garfield.
South of Garfield, the CTA will run six free shuttles from the Green Line station to 95th Street.
An average of 50,000 riders use the south branch of the Red Line each day, according to the CTA.
Commuters are already seeing the effects of the construction.
Preston Teryayah-Griggs said the construction caused his mother to be nearly two hours late for her arrival on Sunday.
“Things just don’t seem to be flowing as well as expected,” he said.
Read more at NBCChicago.
(Photo: NBCChicago screengrab.)
- Created on 17 May 2013
Father, Son to Graduate Morehouse College Together
ATLANTA — This weekend will be a busy one for Dorian Joyner, Sr. Sunday morning, he will watch his oldest son graduate from Morehouse College.
Joyner will have a front row seat for commencement. After all, he will be a fellow graduate himself.
Joyner started his Morehouse journey back in 1984, but never finished. Three years ago, he decided it was time to come back. By then his son, Dorian Joyner, Jr. was already a freshman.
When the younger Joyner heard his father was coming back to Morehouse, he admits, it was a shock at first.
Read more at the Grio.
(Photo: NBC Atlanta)
- Created on 20 May 2013
4 Dead, 14 Wounded in Weekend Violence
Three people were fatally shot in the head and another shot dead in the chest in weekend violence that wounded at least 14 others across Chicago, according to police.
The most recent fatality to strike the weekend occured at 9:10 p.m. in the 6800 block of South Lowe Avenue when shots were fired into a group of people, striking a 30-year-old woman in the head, police said.
In the same shooting, a 27-year-old woman suffered a gunshot wound to the wrist and a 37-year-old man was shot in the back. Both were taken to Saint Bernard Hospital and Health Care Center where their conditions were stabilized, according to the Chicago police news affairs Officer Sullivan.
The weekend's first fatality took place at 7:24 p.m. Friday in the 7800 block of South Langely Avenue when a 17-year-old man was shot in the chest, according to news affairs officer Jose Estrada.
Read more at NBCChicago.
(Photo: NBCChicago.)
- Created on 17 May 2013
Couple Killed in Chicago Heights Fire
A married couple died early Friday in a house fire in south suburban Chicago Heights. The flames broke out around 1:40 a.m. in the 200 block of East 24th Street, fire officials said. Neighbors said the entire front of the home was on fire when they heard sirens. "I happened to look out and I saw the front porch mainly up in flames," neighbor Courtney Wilson said.
There is no sign of any working smoke detectors, the fire chief said, so the couple may not have known until too late that their home was on fire. Firefighters ran into the burning home where they found a man and woman in a second-floor bedroom. They rushed the two out of the home, but the woman, identified by family members as 47-year-old Lillian Hill Harrison, had already passed away.
The chief said first responders tried to save 43-year-old Lemont Harrison, an amputee, but he passed away. "Their bedroom's upstairs, so they were probably up there asleep, and the fire went so fast," Lillian Hill Harrison's father, Charles Cowan, said. Neighbors said they have seen children at the home before, but the fire chief said the two adults were the only ones inside when the fire broke out. The fire marshal was on the scene trying to find a cause of the blaze. Neighbors said at one point both the car out front and the house were on fire. It's not clear which came first.
Read more at NBCChicago.
(Photo: NBCChicago screenshot)
