• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, January 9, 2017

It won’t erase the horror, but maybe it will help with the healing. In an outpouring of sympathy, well-wishers have raised more than $140,000 for the 18-year-old mentally ill man whose torture was live streamed on Facebook last week, far exceeding the original goal of $10,000.

The crowdfunding campaign on GoFundMe was organized by a San Francisco user named “Razor” Sheldon, who wrote in his fundraising plea: “For those of you that have seen the horrific torture and trauma recently inflicted on a young man in Chicago, it is not something you will soon forget. Let’s prove to him that there is far more good in this world than the evil he recently endured.”

The solicitation went viral almost immediately, with 2,000 people contributing $67,000 within 24 hours. By Monday morning a total of almost 5,000 donors have pledged $141,406.

As reported last week, four people are being charged with hate crimes in addition to a number of other offenses related to the incident. Jordan Hill, Tesfaye Cooper, and Brittany Covington, all 18 years old, and Tanishia Covington, 24 years old, are being charged with felonies, including aggravated kidnapping, aggravated unlawful restraint, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, residential burglary and hate crime following the incident.

The assault included kicking, punching, cutting with a knife, and making him drink out of a toilet. The attackers, who are African-American, also utter obscenities including “Fuck white people.” The state’s attorney for Cook County, Illinois, said the decision to charge them with hate crimes is based on these statements as well as references to his mental illness and disability.

The victim of the Facebook Live attack, whom most news outlets have chosen not to identify by name, reportedly suffers from schizophrenia and attention deficit disorder.