Two people were charged with Aggravated Battery and Hate Crime following an altercation that took place in Charleston on Saturday.
According to a press release from the Charleston Police Department, the Department and the Eastern Illinois University Police Department were alerted to a fight in progress in the McHugh’s Parking Lot on Lincoln Avenue at 7:23pm. Witnesses and victims told officers that two men approached a family at McHugh’s and yelled obscenities and racial slurs at them. The men were then allegedly seen battering two members of the family before leaving McHugh’s. The witnesses told officers that the attack seemed unprovoked.
After an investigation, officers arrested 25 year old, Jacob J Nicely and 25 year old, Steven M Page, both of Mokena, Illinois. The two men were charged with Aggravated Battery, Hat Crime, and three misdemeanors.
All persons listed are innocent until proven guilty in the court of law.
(Pictured left to right: Jacob J Nicely and Steven Page. Photos courtesy of the Coles County Sheriff’s Department)