CNN host Don Lemon said Wednesday evening the broadcasted torture of a bound and gagged victim in Chicago was not “evil,” adding that the suspects had “bad home training.” News broke nationally Wednesday after a Facebook Live video showed the victim beaten, slashed, held at knifepoint, and more in a Chicago apartment while assailants are heard saying “fuck white people” and “fuck Trump.” Chicago police held a press conference the same day to announce an investigation is underway and four adults are in police custody. The suspects held the “traumatized” victim for as many as 48 hours, police said. “The fact that this was a vulnerable person that was probably duped into going along with them. It appears it is someone who is mentally disabled, I think makes it even more sickening,” said guest Matt Lewis. “But at the end of the day, you just try to wrap your head around evil. That’s what this is, it’s evil. It’s brutality. It’s man’s inhumanity to man.”
“I don’t think it’s evil,” Lemon replied. “I don’t think it’s evil. I think these are young people and I think they have bad home training. I say, who is raising these young people? I have no idea who’s raising these young people. Because no one I know on Earth who is 17 years old or 70 years old would ever think of treating another person like that. It is inhumane. And you wonder, at 18 years old, where is your parent? Where’s your guardian?”
During the same discussion, Democrat strategist and former press secretary for Bernie Sanders Symone Sanders said the attack was “not a hate crime” if the suspects were motivated by “hate of Donald Trump.”
