Four Charged In Brutal Canaryville Mob Attack
By Jim Bochnowski in News on Jun 8, 2015 9:40PM
Picture via Chicago Police Department
Two men and two women appeared in court Sunday after being charged with a brutal stabbing in Canaryville that left a brother and sister with critical injuries.
Early in the morning on May 30, two siblings and their friend were heading to the Taylor-Lauridsen Park in the Canaryville neighborhood when they met several people on the way, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. The trio agreed to give them a ride to the park, where they met up with a larger group of people.
When they got to the park, the woman who was stabbed recalled that members of the group got into an argument, according to an interview with ABC. As she said to ABC:
"They were arguing, so my little brother was trying to break it up. He's like, 'We're out here trying to have a nice time. You're all friends. Don't fight. And they just start jumping on him. It was like 16 people on my brother, so I went over there to try to get them off. Everything happened so quickly. The next thing I know we're laying on the ground. It's like this part of my skin is hanging down here. And I feel over some more, and the knife was still stuck in my face."
Assistant State's Attorney Akash Vyas told the Chicago Tribune that as many as seven to ten people attacked the victims, and one of the suspects stabbed the sibling's friend, then stabbed Fox in the arm. As her brother came over to protect her, the suspects stabbed him twice in the chest and four times in the ribs.
The woman told ABC that she believed the attack was racially motivated, saying, "If somebody pretty much kept calling you the N-word, you would think it was racially motivated, too." The woman wrote about the experience in a Facebook post last week that went viral and brought attention to the attack from major news outlets. The Sun-Times reported that all three were treated at Stroger Hospital and eventually released.
David Rice, Kevin Hoynes, Joya Urbikas and Courtney Vega appeared in bond court on Sunday for a preliminary hearing. The foursome, who are members of the Insane Deuces street gang according to court records, were each charged with four counts of aggravated assault, two counts of attempted murder and one count of mob action, according to the Sun-Times.
At court, Cook County Judge James Brown ordered Vega held on $150,000 bail and Hoynes held in lieu of $175,000 bail. Urbikas and Rice were each held in lieu of $75,000 bail. The four are expected to return to court on June 11, according to DNA Info Chicago.