Austin Hilbourn (born 1999) is a special needs teenager residing in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. ^[0]He became the center of national media attention on January 4, 2017, after he was recorded in a video that went viral on social media being tortured and verbally abused by Brittany Herring (Covington), Tanishia Covington, Jaenone Eblock, and Tesfaye Cooper. ^{[1] [4]}

On Tuesday January 3rd, 2017, Brittany, her sister Tanishia Covington, Jaenone Eblock, and Tesfaye Cooper kidnapped Austin in a stolen white van and took him to the West Side of Chicago, Illinois. ^[-1]Once they arrive at an apartment, a bare, minimalist apartment, they begin to torture him, while yelling racially motivated obscenities at Donald Trump and white people. At one point in the video he is forced to drink toilet water. ^{[1] [0] [4]}

The four of them continually make references to Donald Trump as a way to depict him as a Trump supporter, as they yell: “Fuck white people! Fuck Donald Trump!” He is tied up with his mouth shut, and at times appears comatose. ^[1]The four of them proceed by kicking him repeatedly, smacking him around, and earlier in the video Herring demonstrates one of them slicing off a small chunk of his scalp. ^{[1] [0] [4]}

The four perpetrators were arrested on January 4, 2017 by Chicago Police, with the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office filing felony criminal charges against all four. ^{[4] [-1] [4]}

In addition to the hate crime charges, some of them also faced additional counts of aggravated kidnapping, aggravated battery and aggravated unlawful restraint. ^[4]

A GoFundMe ^[0]was set up to help Austin and his family. ^[0]The campaign has raised over $135,000 in just two days of the initial $10,000 goal. ^[0]