This image from video provided by WFLD Fox Chicago on Monday, Sept. 28, 2009 shows a person swinging a wooden two-by-four during a fight on Chicago's South Side on Thursday, Sept. 24, 2009. Prosecutors have charged three teenagers with first-degree murder in the beating death of Chicago student Derrion Albert who was walking home from school when this fight occurred. Family members believe the 16-year-old was fatally beaten Thursday for refusing to join a gang. But some witnesses say he was a bystander who was swept into a violent fight.
These photos released Monday, Sept. 28, 2009 by the Chicago Police show 19-year-old Silvonus Shannon, left, and 18-year-old Eugene Riley, right, who have been ordered held without bail on charges of first-degree murder in the Thursday, Sept. 24, 2009 beating death of 16-year-old Chicago student Derrion Albert. A spokesman for the Cook County state's attorney's office says Shannon, Riley and 16-year-old Eric Carson, not shown, have been charged as adults Albert's death.
Nadashia Thomas, 6, a cousin of 16-year-old Derrion Albert, looks at posters of him at Fenger High School in Chicago Thursday, Sept. 28, 2009. A vigil for Derrion Albert was planned at his school.
Police officer, right, tries to stop community leader Queen Sister from entering the front gate of Fenger High School in Chicago, Sept. 28, 2009. A vigil for Derrion Albert was planned outside of Fenger High School. Several anti-violence groups had gathered Monday afternoon to remember the 16-year-old student who was beaten to death last week. Members of one group decided to force their way into Fenger High School, where Albert was a sophomore. At one point between 15 and 20 people were banging on the doors of the high school, trying to get inside. Police barred them from entering the building.
Cell phone footage showing a group of teens viciously kicking and striking a 16-year-old honors student with splintered railroad ties has ramped up pressure on Chicago officials to address chronic violence that has led to dozens of deaths of city teens each year.
The graphic video of the afternoon melee emerged on local news stations over the weekend, showed the fatal beating of Derrion Albert, a sophomore honor roll student at Christian Fenger Academy High School. His death was the latest addition to a toll that keeps getting higher: More than 30 students were killed last school year, and the city could exceed that number this year.
Prosecutors charged three teenagers on Monday with fatally beating Albert, who was walking to a bus stop when he got caught up in the mob street fighting, authorities said.
The violence stemmed from a shooting early Thursday morning involving two groups of students from different neighborhoods, said Tandra Simonton, a spokeswoman for the Cook County prosecutor's office. When school ended, members of the two groups began fighting near the Agape Community Center.
The attack, captured in part on a bystander's cell phone video, shows Albert being struck on the head by one of several young men wielding wooden planks. After he falls to the ground an appears to try to get up, he is struck again and then kicked.
Prosecutors charged Silvonus Shannon, 19, Eugene Riley, 18, and Eric Carson, 16, with first-degree murder, and they were ordered held without bond on Monday, said Andy Conklin, a spokesman for the Cook County prosecutor's office. The Cook County Public Defender's Office, which represented the three teenagers in court, had no immediate comment Monday.
Chicago police said charges are pending against a fourth suspect and that they are looking for at least three more suspects, but would not discuss a possible motive for the attack.
Simonton said Albert was a bystander and not part of either group. She said he was knocked unconscious when Carson struck him in the head with a board and the second person punched him in the face. Albert regained consciousness and was trying to get up when he was attacked a second time by five people and was struck in the head with a board by Riley and stomped in the head by Shannon, Simonton said.
Desiyan Bacon, Riley's aunt, said her nephew didn't have anything to do with the beating and was a friend of the victim.
"They need to stop the crime, but when they do it, they need to get the right person," Bacon said.
For Chicago, a sharp rise in violent student deaths over the past three school years — most from shootings off school property — have been a tragedy and an embarrassment.
Before 2006, an average of 10-15 students were fatally shot each year. That climbed to 24 fatal shootings in the 2006-07 school year, 23 deaths and 211 shootings in the 2007-08 school year and 34 deaths and 290 shootings last school year.
At a vigil at the school on Monday, some community members said the solution lies with parents.
"It is our problem. We have to take control of our children," said Dawn Allen, who attended a vigil at the school Monday, where a group of residents tried to force their way into the school before being turned back by police.
This month, the city announced a $30 million project that targets 1,200 high school pupils identified as most at risk to become victims of gun violence, giving them full-time mentors and part-time jobs to keep them off the streets. Some money also will pay for more security guards and to provide safe passage for students forced to travel through areas with active street gangs.
Albert's family attended a news conference Monday with school district leaders and police, but did not speak. They wore T-shirts with a picture of him in a cap and gown, with the words, "Gone too soon, too young."
But Annette Holt, mother of Blair Holt, a Chicago Public Schools student who was shot on a city bus two years ago, said Albert represented "another promising future, just snuffed out because of violence ... we have to do something different here because obviously we didn't solve the problem."
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