Conviction in Beverly Park beating
An 18-year-old Chicago man has been convicted of aggravated battery, robbery and unlawful restraint in the wake of a brutal beating that left a 14-year-old Beverly boy unconscious last summer.
In an emotional conclusion to a bench trial that began Monday, Micha Eatman was convicted Thursday in Cook County Criminal Court after Judge Joseph Kazmierski Jr. ruled there was insufficient evidence to convict him of attempted first-degree murder. A pre-sentencing hearing is scheduled for 1 p.m. April 5.
Eatman, his cousin and another local teen were arrested after several witnesses saw them beat and rob Ryan Rusch in broad daylight July 16 at Beverly Park, 2530 W. 103rd St.
Three teenagers followed 14-year-old Ryan
Rusch of Beverly into Beverly Park July
16 and beat him into unconsciousness
in broad daylight. Micha Eatman, 18,
of Chicago, was convicted Thursday
of aggravatedbattery, robbery and
unlawful restraint. - Photo by
Michael Fielding
Rusch was hospitalized at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he spent more than a week – during part of which he was in a drug-induced coma.
The diminutive eighth-grade student of St. John Fisher School had just left his cousin’s house and was walking through the park when the teens attacked him, hitting him on the head and kicking him. After Rusch fell, the teens continued to attack, leaving the bloodied Rusch in a seizure.
One of the juveniles later told police that they had attacked Rusch because he was a “goofy-looking white boy” – something that originally prompted police to investigate the incident as a hate crime.
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The Cook County state’s attorney’s office has believed that the beating was motivated simply by an intent to rob the boy.
Eatman faces up to seven years in prison.
The other teens, ages 16 and 17, will be tried in Juvenile Court, although a trial date has not been set. The hate crime designation would make little difference in the charges, since the juveniles have already been charged with felonies. Instead, a judge would simply have more flexibility in sentencing.
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