Activists Plead for Help on Beating Deaths

Pleading with residents to “break the code of silence,” community leaders went door to door Thursday to find witnesses to the killing of two men who were dragged from a van after an accident and beaten by an angry mob.

“So far the community has not responded,” said Najee Ali, a civil rights activist who helped organize the canvass. “They’re still in a state of shock. It’s up to the community leaders to provide guidance, to say it’s OK to help law enforcement. It’s time to break the code of silence.”

Meanwhile, authorities on Thursday reported that the van’s driver was legally drunk.

Anthony Stuckey, 49, and Jack Moore, 62, were in a rental van Tuesday evening that hurtled over a curb and plowed into a group of young people on a stoop in the blighted Oakland neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, police said.

As the injured lay on the ground, a mob pulled the two men from the van and beat them to death with their hands, feet, bricks and stones, police said.

Police had a suspect in custody, but no immediate charges were filed. Police said they were talking to several other “persons of interest.” Supt. of Police Terry G. Hillard asked for help from the public in finding anyone involved.

“I think everybody’s pretty repulsed. It was just a horrible display of abuse,” said Julia Mitchell, a 29-year-old neighborhood resident. Police said they do not know what caused the van to veer off the street.

But the Cook County medical examiner reported Thursday that Moore had a blood-alcohol level between 0.08 and 0.09, just above the legal limit of 0.08. Stuckey had a level of 0.06, the medical examiner said.

“This is a simple, senseless, double homicide committed by a bunch of cowardly thugs, and these murderers will be brought to justice,” Hillard said.

Zakiyyah S. Muhammad, who lives in the neighborhood, said people there are wary of police and may hesitate to turn in friends.

Three people struck by the van remained hospitalized, one in critical condition, the others in fair condition.