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The soaring crime rate in Chicago and a violent videotaped attack on a mentally disabled man were on President Barack Obama’s mind Thursday.

Obama publicly referred to a Facebook Live clip of four attackers assaulting an unidentified 18-year-old White disabled male as “despicable,” while the Cook County state’s attorney filing hate crimes charges against four African-American Chicago residents arrested for the crime, reports the Chicago Sun Times.

The teens as Jordan Hill, 18, Tesfaye Cooper, 18, Brittany Covington, 28, and Tanishia Covington, 24, writes the news outlet:

“What we have seen as surfacing, I think, are a lot of problems that have been there a long time,” Obama told CBS2. “Whether it’s tensions between police and communities, hate crimes of the despicable sort that has just now recently surfaced on Facebook.

The Facebook video has focused a spotlight on crime in Chicago in advance of Obama’s Tuesday return to his adopted hometown to deliver his farewell address at McCormick Place.

Obama discussed the video beating and Chicago’s soaring murder rate and violence in interviews at the White House with reporters from five Chicago television stations.

The accused — who also face additional counts of aggravated kidnapping, battery and unlawful restraint — will appear in court Friday afternoon after the videotaped crime was erroneously linked to Black Lives Matter with police having found no supporting evidence, reports The Washington Post.

SOURCE: Chicago Sun TimesThe Washington Post

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