Disturbing videos have been making rounds on social media depicts residents of an Harvey, Illinois apartment building being confined to their homes by a construction crew.
According to recent clips, residents can now open their doors again but still have concerns about the situation. On Friday night, multiple clips went viral showing a construction crew boarded up apartment doors. While some units were vacant, one unit housed a mother and her two children. Using any available tools, a community activist dismantled the boards on the apartment, diligently searching for anyone potentially trapped inside. Fortunately, the unit was empty.
Rudolph Williams, who found himself confined within his apartment, showed footage of the handles of his screen door broken off by construction crews during the boarding-up process. The 73-year-old was unaware that he was being trapped inside.
“I hadn’t really even heard them breaking this off,” Williams said. “I’m used to the noise when they’re doing some construction, so I just figured they’ve been going around putting up the boards and everything. So I didn’t really pay that much attention after a while, and I sort of drowned it out.”
Additionally, James, Rudolph’s nephew, documented the situation from the outside. The footage revealed construction crews dismissing their pleas to remove the boards.
“They walked right past me,” James said. “I said, ‘Can you come up for this window? It’s a person inside this.’ And he looked at me and kept on walking.”
The city has been reaching out to building owners since October regarding unsafe conditions, specifically citing a collapsed stairwell. The police in Harvey acknowledge that nobody was evicted before the boards were installed. They state that property owners boarded up the complex while their officers conducted multiple inspections and wellness checks on the property.
