18-year-old Catrell A. Walls, who was out on bond for a previous gun case, is currently being held without bail for live-streaming himself performing a sexual act with a 7-year-old. The girl was on break from her Chicago Public School remote learning class.
Arrested Thursday afternoon, Walls, from the West Chesterfield neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, was charged with predatory criminal sexual assault of a victim under 13-years-old.
The police were called by the teacher when she witnessed the attack during a Google classroom e-learning session. According to the Chicago Tribune, numerous students who saw were distraught. “What’s going on, what’s happening?” they were heard asking.
Apparently, the teacher asked the students to mute and turn off their cameras for a break. The 7-year-old muted herself but forgot to turn off her camera. When the teacher noticed what was happening, she immediately ordered all students to log off and “called out the victim’s name and told her to turn off the camera.”
The police, the school principal, and the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services were called. Officers arrived at the victim’s location where Wall’s was identified and arrested.
The victim told police that for the last year, Walls has sexually abused her. He would “just hit her” and tell her it was a “secret.”
Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Andreana Turano told Beach, “The victim disclosed ‘he made me put my lips on (him) and this has happened before, and I don’t want my daddy to know, it’s a secret.'”
Turano went onto say that Walls showed a “wanton callousness for human life.”
While being taken into custody, Walls started to cry and said, “I don’t know why. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
A senior in high school, Wall has no history of sexual or violent crimes. However, he is diagnosed with a disorder that “impairs his ability to control his impulses and concentration,” his attorney said, reported by the Tribune.
He is being held without bail for many reasons, the first being that he is “currently on bail for a felony offense.”
“We provide a lot of basic needs for our students and safety is one of them,” Chicago Public Schools CEO Janie Jackson said. Jackson has called the situation “disturbing.”
