Honor Students Charged In Attack On Bike Seller

(CBS) -- Honor roll students, allegedly caught on video in a savage beating in broad daylight are now charged with trying to steal a bicycle, but there's a lot more to this story than you can see with the naked eye.

Four honor roll students have been charged with Class X felonies after police say a man trying to sell a bike was attacked with pepper spray, baseball bats and a metal pipe.

CBS 2's Brad Edwards reports that among the accused are college-bound kids, one to the University of Michigan Business School and one with a 4.3 high school GPA.

At one point in the video, you see the victim being dragged lashed about as he clings to his own bike and in another part attacked with a bat.

Carol Walker saw it all as she was pumping gas in Wicker Park.

"Grabbed this man on his bike, slammed him into my car right here, then drug him over there, beat him with bats, kicked him, sprayed him with mace and drug him on this side and beat him some more," Walker said.

The now hospitalized victim was trying to sell his bike, via Facebook and the accused were reportedly trying to retrieve a bike that was stolen from them.

"I was calling police and I told them stop hitting the man cause you already hit my damn car," Walker said.

The accused include a college-bound juvenile and Michael K. Kralis, 18; Andrew Patterson, 18; Carter Coates, an 18-year-old Whitney Young grad with a 4.3 GPA, bound for California Polytechnic Institute on scholarship; and Patrick Moran, 18, a University of Michigan-bound honors grad from Whitney Young. They have all been charged with aggravated battery and armed robbery. A juvenile has also been charged with armed robbery.

At the arraignment Wednesday in Criminal Court at 26th and California, tears were shed.

The judge said, "Yeah, I'd be crying if I were you, too. Can we have some Kleenex for these young men?"

Carol Walker didn't see all their promise when she saw them, "about to kill a young man out here yesterday," she said.

Apparently the group called police before-hand to report they were about to retrieve a stolen bike but instead of waiting, they allegedly attacked the man.

CBS 2 reached out to their private attorneys, who had no comment.