Teen beaten to death caught on tape

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ThisIsAShow
October 01, 2009

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) -- Three teenagers have been charged with first-degree murder in the death of a 16-year-old boy whose beating was captured on amateur video. Derrion Albert was beaten to d...

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) -- Three teenagers have been charged with first-degree murder in the death of a 16-year-old boy whose beating was captured on amateur video.

Derrion Albert was beaten to death last week. His death was captured on video.

Nineteen-year-old Silvanus Shannon, 16-year-old Eric Carson and 18-year-old Eugene Riley were charged as adults with first degree felony murder, said Tandra Simonton, spokesperson for the Cook County States Attorney.

They are charged in the death of Derrion Albert, an honors student who was beaten to death last Thursday. An amateur videotape of the beating has been broadcast nationally.

It's unclear who shot the footage, but a local television station that received the tape turned it over to police.

The tape shows attackers wielding two-by-fours and punching and kicking a single person. At one point, four or five males are seen beating and stomping the same young man after he falls to the ground.

As the attackers run away, the person with the camera and several others approached Albert and carried him into a nearby building. "Derrion, get up!" a female voice pleads.

On Monday, family and friends, some wearing shirts bearing Albert's photo, held a vigil in his honor.

They asked the community to turn in anyone they knew who was a part of Albert's beating.

"What kind of person, what kind of individual, has such rage and such anger and such madness?" the Rev. Michael Pfleger said. "We've got to get to the hearts of our children, because nothing, nothing, excuses or justifies the actions of an individual who would beat another individual. Nothing justifies that in this society. "

Pfleger said it was time to make a change, so children aren't afraid to go to or from school.

He said this kind of teen violence was not just an issue for Chicago, but from "Oakland to Newark."

Ron Huberman, CEO of Chicago Public Schools, said he had met with Albert's classmates.

"How do we make sure this event doesn't become another event?" he said. "Another vigil on another day."

Huberman said he will fight every day to ensure the safety of children in Chicago's schools.

"We can promise them and we can say that we we will absolutely remember Derrion," he said.

Flanked by people holding signs with photos of a young child and the words "Don't shoot, I want to grow up," Pfleger pleaded for peace.

"It's time for guns, and it's time for two-by-fours to stop being the way we treat each other," he said.
Kid teenager teen beaten hit to death die dies dead.

The family of a Chicago teenager whose beating death was caught on video hope that the attention the incident has garnered will spur healing locally, a relative said at a news conference Wednesday evening. "It should've never happened, but it's never too late," said Rose Braxton, great-aunt of 16-year-old Derrion Albert. "It's time for healing to start getting our communities together so this won't happen to anyone else's child ever again."

Four suspects have been charged with first-degree murder in the September 24 killing of Albert, and police say they are looking for three more people in connection with the beating captured on videotape.

Prosecutors said that Albert, an honors student, was an innocent bystander who ended up in the middle of a street fight between two factions of students from Fenger High School.

The incident caught the attention of the White House, too.

The footage of the incident, which shows Albert being hit by a railroad tie, "is "chilling" and one of the most shocking things "you can ever see," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Wednesday.

President Obama's concern over the killing didn't provide additional comfort to the family, "but I'm glad that it's out there so everyone can see it and they know that, yes, this is happening," Braxton said.

"This was vicious. How do you just come out and decide that you're going to attack someone with a two-by-four?" Braxton said. She spoke to reporters together with area community and church leaders.

"Maybe this will wake up and shake up people," the Rev. Jesse Jackson said at the press conference, noting that three teens were killed in Chicago this week.

Braxton said her message to the White House was simply, "Do something."

"We need to get to our children," she said. "Why are they so angry, so full of venom, that you would even consider doing something like that to another human being?"

Albert's funeral was scheduled for Saturday at 10 a.m. at Greater Mount Hebron Baptist Church in Chicago.

An amateur videotape shot by a witness, which has been broadcast widely, showed the attack unfolding. A local TV station that received the tape turned it over to police.

When school let out at 2:50 p.m. on Thursday, Albert was on his way to a bus stop when two groups of students converged on the street, said Tandra Simonton, spokeswoman for the Cook County States Attorney.

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