Girl, 15, sexually assaulted by 6 men on Facebook Live - but nobody reported to police

A teenager was sexually assaulted by a gang of attackers on Facebook Live – and none of the 40 people who watched reported it to the police.

A 15-year-old girl from Chicago was apparently sexually assaulted by five or six men or boys while the horrific ordeal was streamed on social media.

Despite 40 people watching the live video, nobody reported the attack to police, authorities said Tuesday.

Police only learned of the latest alleged attack when the girl’s mother approached the head of the police department, Superintendent Eddie Johnson, late Monday afternoon.

She told him her daughter had been missing since Sunday and showed him screen grab photos of the alleged assault.

He said Johnson immediately ordered detectives to investigate and the department asked Facebook to take down the video, which it did.

Guglielmi said Tuesday that detectives found the girl and reunited her with her family.

He said she told detectives that she knows at least one of her alleged attackers, but it’s not yet clear how well they knew each other.

He said investigators are questioning several people, but no one is considered a suspect yet and no arrests have been made.

He said Johnson was ‘visibly upset’ after he watched the video, both by its content and the fact that there were ’40 or so live viewers and no one thought to call authorities’.

Investigators know the number of viewers because the count was posted with the video.

To find out who they were, though, investigators would have to subpoena (summon to court) Facebook and would need to ‘prove a nexus to criminal activity’ to obtain such a subpoena, Guglielmi said by email.

A spokeswoman for Facebook, Andrea Saul, said she had no specific comment on the Chicago incident but that the company takes its ‘responsibility to keep people safe on Facebook very seriously.’

‘Crimes like this are hideous and we do not allow that kind of content on Facebook,’ she said.