This is messed up.

Mary Mitchell's column today.

A young man just so happened to be with a group of teens who according to the Chicago Police struck a University of Chicago student in the back of the head for only five dollars. The subject of this column a Jemelle Lloyd is 17 year old senior attending Bronzeville Academy. He has an ailing mother too and calls her twice a day.

How did he get caught up in this. He just so happen to be wearing green and yellow sweats that fellow students who were charged in this incident were wearing. According to Mitchell...

If that's the case, it wouldn't be the first time that a black man has been swept up into a lineup because he "looks like" the suspect.

Here's more...

On Monday, the mother tearfully explained her understanding of what transpired before her son's arrest.

Apparently, three of the teens are childhood friends and members of their high school basketball team. The group hitched a ride with another student from 35th and Giles (where the school is located) to the Hyde Park area because "that's as far as the student was going," Lloyd's mother told me.

"My son started calling me between 3:30 and 3:45 p.m," she said. "We talked and all of a sudden, the phone went dead."

Lloyd was supposed to catch the No. 15 bus to his home in the 6900 block of East End. His mother called his cell phone until a police officer answered.
"He told me my son was being arrested," she said, crying. "I could hear him in the background telling the police officer that I had had a stroke," she said.

Lloyd was eventually taken to 26th and California.

"He called me at 3 a.m. the next morning and said "Mama, I swear to you. I didn't do this," the mother said.

A police spokesman verified that Lloyd has no police record.

Even so, his bond is $50,000, which means his mother has to put up $5,000 to get him out of Cook County Jail.

Parents of the three other teens have already posted bonds.

"I don't have that kind of money," Suzette Lloyd said on Monday. She and other family members are trying to scrape up money to get Jemelle a lawyer.

I hope this kid can beat this because it would be unfortunate that he gets a record not for committing the crime but association and only for wearing the same clothes as the others who were in the group. And assault for five dollars isn't worth it, but it was worth it to someone. It is desperation or just plain immaturity?