Chicago ? Pleading with residents to “break the code of silence,” community leaders went door-to-door Thursday to find witnesses to the slaying of two men who were dragged from a van after an accident and beaten by an angry mob.

“So far the community has not responded,” said Najee Ali, a civil rights activist who helped organize the canvass. “They’re still in a state of shock. It’s up to the community leaders to provide guidance, to say it’s OK to help law enforcement. It’s time to break the code of silence.”

Meanwhile, authorities on Thursday reported that the van’s driver was legally drunk.

Jack Moore, 62, and Anthony Stuckey, 49, were in a rental van Tuesday evening that hurtled over a curb and plowed into a group of young people on a stoop in the blighted Oakland neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, police said.

As the injured lay on the ground, a mob pulled the two men from the van and beat them to death with their hands, feet, bricks and stones, police said.

Police had a suspect in custody Thursday morning, but no immediate charges were filed. Police said they were talking to several other “persons of interest.” Supt. Terry Hillard asked for help from the public in finding anyone involved.

Police said they do not know what caused the van to veer off the street. But the Cook County Medical Examiner reported Thursday that Moore had a blood alcohol level between 0.08 and 0.09, just above the legal limit of 0.08. Stuckey had a level of 0.06, the medical examiner said.

Three people struck by the van remained hospitalized, one in critical condition, the others in fair condition.