Obama calls Chicago torture incident 'despicable'

President Obama called the beating of a mentally disabled man broadcast on Facebook Live "despicable" but said the incident is not a sign racial tensions are worsening.

 

Obama called the incident, involving four black suspects and a white victim, an example of how racial strife is more visible in the digital age. But, he said, the overall path of race relations in the U.S. is “very positive.”

 

“In part because we see visuals of racial tensions, violence and so forth because of smartphones and the internet ... what we have seen as surfacing, I think, are a lot of problems that have been there a long time,” Obama said in an interview with a CBS affiliate in Chicago.

 

Chicago authorities have filed hate-crime charges against four black suspects, who shouted insults about white people and President-elect Donald TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump administration weighing order to bar Central American migrants from claiming asylum: report Biden to campaign for two Democrats in Iowa Ex-DHS staffer says he quit over Trump administration's handling of family separation policy MORE during the attack.

 

In the video, which showed a group of people gagging and attacking a white, disabled suburban Chicago teen, chants of "f--- Donald Trump" and "f--- white people" could be heard.

 

Obama expressed alarm about the attack, which he referred to in a separate interview with Chicago’s WLS as an apparent "horrific hate crime."