5 arrested in Near North Red Line robbery
Chicago Tribune
Police were questioning five people in the overnight robbery of a man on a Red Line train on the Near North Side in what was being investigated as a possible hate crime.
One of them had the victim’s cell phone on him when Public Transportation Section officers arrested the four juveniles and an adult as they tried to leave the Grand Avenue subway station a little after midnight, police said.
The victim, a man in his 20s, was riding a northbound Red Line train about midnight Tuesday when a group of teenage boys began hovering around him, with one grabbing his cell phone, police said. The man resisted, and another of the five punched him in the face, police said.
Investigators were trying to determine if the attackers, who are black, might have targeted the man, who is white and was wearing a yarmulke, because of his Jewish ethnicity, police said.
After the robbery, one of the five held open the doors of the “L” train at the Grand Avenue stop as the others ran from the train, police said. The victim got off the train at Division and walked up to the street, where he flagged down Near North District patrol officers, police said.
The patrol officers sent out a flash message giving a description of the man’s attackers, and Public Transportation officers responded, police said. The transportation officers caught the five suspects as they tried to leave the Grand Avenue stop.
The victim identified the five as his attackers, and they were being questioned this morning.
Belmont Area detectives were investigating.
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