In a video that appeared to be shot on a smartphone, a group of young men and women viciously beat a 49-year-old man named David Wilcox while screaming phrases such as “You voted Trump” and “Don’t vote Trump.”
“I stopped and parked. And I asked if they had insurance, and the next thing that I knew they were beating the s— out of me,” Wilcox told the paper.
In the video, several men and women threw him to the concrete and kicked him repeatedly, sometimes in the face.
The laughing group threw haymakers at the Wilcox’s head, as he desperately tried to crawl and limp back to his Bonneville. The door hung open until one of the young men climbed into the driver’s seat and slammed the door.
A subsequent video obtained by the Tribune showed Wilcox grabbing onto the open back window of the car, as the young man drove off. Wilcox hung from the window, his feet dragging along the concrete as the Bonneville picked up speed.
“The guy took off. He was doing 70 or 80 down Roosevelt, swerving. He was trying to have me fall off, and I knew if I somehow let go, I was going to die,” Wilcox told the paper. “Then he slowed down. I was looking at oncoming traffic. He probably slowed to about 45. God was watching over for me. I rolled about five or seven times into the oncoming traffic lanes.”
Wilcox said he did vote for Donald Trump, but that no one would know this just by looking at his car. He said of Trump, “He’s gonna bring back the economy. I believe he’s gonna be the one to protect the [nation]. I know he doesn’t speak politically correct sometimes, but 95 percent of the country doesn’t.”
He claimed someone at a nearby bus stop yelled, “Yeah, it’s one of them white boy Trump guys,” during the attack.
Alderman Michael Scott Jr. told DNA Info the scene was “very disturbing.”
“It is very disturbing to see any act of violence, especially an act of violence [that may have been based] on a man’s political preference or views,” Scott said. “This is something I and the people of North Lawndale will not tolerate.”
“Regardless of who said those statements, the department is taking this very seriously, and that type of divisive rhetoric is not acceptable,” Anthony Guglielmi, chief police spokesman, told the Tribune.
In a Facebook post that was liked more than 1,500 times, the Rev. Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina on Chicago’s South Side wrote:
A video was posted this morning showing a man being pulled from his car and beaten by a group of teens at Roosevelt and Kedzie . . . while shouting YOU VOTED FOR TRUMP……This is Unacceptable and must be condemned by Everybody…..VIOLENCE is NEVER an acceptable response! . . . Emotions are raw coming out of this election but frustration, anger and despair do not give permission to be violent……..Let us not surrender to evil, rather rise above it!!!!!
According to the Associated Press, no one was in custody for the assault or the grand theft auto on Thursday afternoon.
Police are investigating.
“What’s happening to America?” Wilcox asked in a recorded interview with the Tribune. “You’re supposed to be able to vote in peace. It’s supposed to be part of our democracy, and what happened is I vote for somebody, and I get beaten, robbed, and my car stolen, and I have no way of getting my wife to and from work safe anymore.”
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