Three teenaged gang members in Chicago will be tried as adults for the murder of a 62-year-old man they allegedly killed for fun.
Police said that they were able to track down the assailants after someone posted a since-deleted video of last week’s attack to 16-year-old Malik Jones’s Facebook page.
Along with Nicholas Ayala, 17, and Anthony Malcolm, 18, Jones is being held without bond for the murder of Delfino Mora, a disabled 62-year-old man who had been out collecting aluminum cans for deposits so that he could buy his family groceries.
Police said the three were playing a game called “Pick ’em out and Knock ’em out,” a popular game within Chicago’s Latin Kings gang community that calls for a group of attackers to select an unsuspecting, random victim and attack him or her with no ulterior motives.
According to assistant state’s attorney Terry Clancy, Jones announced that he was “gonna knock out this [expletive]” before handing his video recording cellphone to Ayala, who in turn handed the phone to Malcolm.
The three surrounded Mora and asked him if he had any money in his pockets before Jones punched him in the jaw. Mora fell to the ground, hit his head on the concrete, and went unconscious.
The three boys fled. Mora was found hours later. He died in the hospital Wednesday morning.
Facebook forbids users from posting content that incites violence or contains graphic or gratuitous violence, though it goes without saying that anybody who facilitates the posting of a murder on their newsfeed deserves to be arrested—let alone kicked off Facebook.
Photo of Delfino Mora via YouTube
