11 teens charged after using dating apps to lure, violently attack 2 men in Mount Prospect, police say
MOUNT PROSPECT, Ill. (CBS) — Nearly a dozen teens were charged after allegedly using dating apps to lure and then beat victims in two separate attacks in Mount Prospect over the summer.
Mount Prospect police said 11 teenage boys, one 16 and the others 17, were charged with felonies, including aggravated battery, criminal damage to property, and mob action.
Both attacks happened on July 8. Police said around 9:45 p.m., a 41-year-old man walked into the department and reported that he was beaten by a group of teens in the parking lot of a business at 606 West Northwest Highway earlier in the evening. He told officers that after arriving to meet someone from a dating app, he was met by the group who beat him and damaged his vehicle.
The victim managed to get back inside his vehicle and leave the scene but was chased by the group in their vehicles, police said.
Then, around 9:54 p.m., officers responded to the 400 block of See Gwun Avenue for a report of a battery. Arriving officers spoke to the victim, a 23-year-old man, who told officers a group of teens attacked him while he was also trying to meet someone from a dating app in the 900 block of West Lincoln Street. The teens beat the victim and slashed his vehicle's tires, police said.
The victim was able to get away in his vehicle but stopped shortly after realizing his tires were slashed. He then went to a home and asked the residents to call 911, police said. Fire crews took him to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Surveillance footage of the first incident was obtained by police and helped them identify some of the members of the group, and the investigation determined that 11 juveniles took part in one or both attacks, police said. One of the 17-year-olds received an additional hate crime charge for yelling racial and derogatory terms during the incident.
Police said some of the teens got the idea of the attacks from a social media trend they saw online.
Mount Prospect police said all of the teens turned themselves in between Nov. 11 and 20. They were taken to the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center.
