CHICAGO — A third person has been charged in the brutal gang-recruitment beating that left a 15-year-old boy critically injured in March.
The boy was stabbed in the neck, beaten, robbed and thrown into a dumpster during the March 16 incident in the 2700 block of South Homan Avenue in Little Village. He was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in critical condition.
Authorities said the people who beat the boy were trying to recruit him to join a street gang, reportedly the Latin Kings.
On Thursday, Marco Garcia-Bojorquez, 27, was charged with attempted first-degree murder. A day after the attack, a 16-year-old boy was charged with attempted murder.
Later in March, 20-year-old Heriberto Ramirez was charged with attempted first-degree murder, kidnapping, robbery and gang recruitment of a minor, all felonies. He was also charged with misdemeanor battery.
The night of March 15, Ramirez's two accomplices met the victim outside his home as the boy left to go to the corner store and demanded that the teen go with them, prosecutors said at Ramirez's March 23 court hearing.
Ramirez joined his accomplices at a laundromat where they told the victim he was going to join the Latin Kings, prosecutors said.
After refusing to join the gang, the boy was allegedly blindfolded and taken to an unknown location, where the group again told him to join the gang.
But the boy refused again, and the group threw him to the ground, kicked him in the head and side, and robbed him of his wallet and keys, prosecutors said.
The group again blindfolded the victim and took him to the 2700 block of South Homan Avenue, where the juvenile accomplice and Ramirez punched him in the face and knocked him to the ground, prosecutors said. He was then stabbed in the neck multiple times.
Then, thinking the boy was dead, the attackers threw him in a garbage can, prosecutors said. The boy stayed there until he felt safe and called police.
Garcia-Bojorquez was arrested Monday, and was expected to appear in court Thursday.
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