Teen mobs hit University Village

Attacks have plagued downtown area as city heats up

06/08/2011 10:00 PM

By BEN MEYERSON and IAN FULLERTON
Editor and Contributing Reporter

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Mobs of teenagers rushed onto two CTA buses in University Village last weekend, attacking bus riders and stealing cells phones and other property.

The attacks, one on Saturday around 11:40 p.m. and one on Sunday around 12:05 a.m. — just 25 minutes later — bear a striking similarity to the sudden attacks that have plagued the city’s downtown area recently.

According to a news release from the Chicago Police Department, roughly eight to 15 teens rushed onto the first bus at 13th Street and Racine Avenue, and then the second at Loomis Avenue and Roosevelt Road.

In each case, they didn’t pay, and struck the victims with objects and their fists before fleeing with cell phones or other electronics.

A police spokesman said that while the attacks were similar in their mob-action nature, the department couldn’t say if the perpetrators were the same that also hit the city’s Near North Side last weekend.

In one of those those attacks, a group of about 20 teenagers attacked suburbanite Krzysztof Wilkowski as he sat on his scooter in the 300 block of East Chicago. After one offender threw a baseball at this head, the gang surrounded Wilkowski, 34, and attempted to take his cell phone. The victim was able to hang on to the phone and the attackers fled empty-handed.

Less than an hour later on the same block, another group of teens robbed a 68-year-old man; this time, the offenders made off with the man’s iPad and phone.

Three other attacks were recorded in the Streeterville area that evening.

In cooperation with the victims of the attacks, police arrested seven individuals in connection to “flash mob” incidents over the weekend; included in that line-up were four male suspects under the age of eighteen.

The phenomena of “flash” crime in Chicago has led police to begin actively monitor social media applications like Facebook and Twitter as a way to stem organizing efforts by a growing field of mostly younger instigators.

When a similar string of attacks occurred ahead of Memorial Day weekend last year, Mayor Daley blamed the incidences on text messaging — as well as underage drinking — by the offenders, most of whom were from the suburbs.


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