14-year-old boy in custody in Facebook sex-assault case

A 14-year-old boy was taken into custody Saturday night in connection with the sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl that was streamed live on Facebook last month.

Chicago Police announced the arrest of the first “of several juvenile offenders” in the assault, Chicago Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said on Twitter.

The boy is facing felony counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault, manufacturing of child pornography and dissemination of child pornography, police said.

More information is expected to be released at a news conference at 11 a.m. Sunday at Chicago Police Headquarters, 3510 S. Michigan Ave.

Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson was leaving a West Side police station on March 20 when the girl’s mother stopped him and showed him images of her daughter being attacked by five or six people.

Johnson immediately walked with the woman into the 10th District police station in the Lawndale neighborhood and called his chief of detectives to gather a team of investigators to respond immediately, Guglielmi said. The department contacted Facebook to take down the video, which it did.

The girl disappeared the day before from Lawndale and initially was reported to police as a missing person.

The girl was located about 7:45 a.m. on March 21 at the intersection of 16th and Independence by 10th District officers, police said. She was taken to Comer Children’s Hospital and subsequently was reunited with her family. She and her mother are working with detectives, Guglielmi said.

As many as 40 people watched online as the girl was attacked, but none reported it to police, Johnson said.

The girl and her family received threats and she was taunted on social media as news of her assault came out, police said.

Guglielmi said in an email March 24 that the girl had been relocated out of her home into a “safe space.”