CHICAGO (AP) - The mother of a 15-year-old girl who authorities say was sexually assaulted in an attack streamed live on Facebook said Wednesday her daughter has received online threats since it happened and that neighborhood kids have been joking about it and harassing her family.
The woman was reunited with her daughter on Tuesday, two days after the girl went missing and a day after police learned of the attack. She said her daughter is staying with a relative and is scared to come home, and she shares that fear.
"This is just disturbing and to think the kids think it is funny," the mother, 32, told the Associated Press. The AP isn't naming her to protect the identity of her daughter.
She said since the attack, people have threatened on Facebook "they are going to get her" daughter, and neighborhood children have been laughing about the incident and ringing the family's doorbell looking for the girl. She said she's shocked by the callousness people have shown since the attack, which was viewed live by about 40 people on Facebook Live - none of whom reported it to the police.
"I can't stay here," she said of Lawndale, the West Side neighborhood where her family lives. "I have other kids, too. I let them walk to school and now I have to take them."
Police said Wednesday they hadn't arrested anyone in the attack, which involved five or six men or boys. A police spokesman, Anthony Guglielmi, said the girl knows at least one of her attackers, and investigators are making good progress identifying those involved.
Andrew Holmes, a local activist, said a friend of the girl's mother called him Monday asking if he could help find the video online and get it to the police, which he did. He said to him, the video showed the girl was frightened and trying to get away.
"You could see where she was fearful. You could see the look of fear and where she is resisting, pushing back," he told the AP. "It looked like she was in total shock."
Holmes said the video shows someone pulling the girl to a bed as she struggled to get away. He said he was struck by the indifference of the others who were there.
"Other individuals were there standing around and talking and someone says, 'Cut the lights off,'" he said, adding that the lights kept going on and off during the video, which was several minutes long.
The mother said her daughter was still terrified after police found her.
"She went to the hospital, but she was so scared she didn't want anybody to touch her," the mother said. She said her daughter had bruising on her neck but she was told of no other significant bruises or cuts by the doctors.