Two Chicago teenagers only received a slap-on-the-wrist misdemeanor charge each after they allegedly violently attacked a couple so severely that their female victim, who was pregnant, had a miscarriage.
Chicago woman loses baby after being randomly attacked by teens
On Friday night, 41-year-old Nina and her husband were walking home from a date night when they were randomly attacked in Streeterville.
At around 8:30 p.m., a group of teens allegedly ambushed them from behind. “Everything happened from behind us. First, someone approached him and punched him in the head,” Nina recounted about her husband.
Although her husband urged Nina to run, the attackers blocked her escape. A girl allegedly pulled Nina to the ground by her hair, yanking out it of her scalp.
“I started screaming, and she started pepper-spraying me right in the face, in the eyes,” Nina said about her young attacker.
Nina also endured multiple punches and kicks to her stomach. When her husband tried to shield her, the group swarmed him, with Nina estimating “over 10 people” pinned him to the ground.
The suspects fled when the police arrived. However, officers managed to detain a 14-year-old boy and a 17-year-old girl that were likely part of the group.
Both teens were arrested and charged with only misdemeanor battery and are no longer in police custody.
The charges seem to be far too light, as Nina, who was a few weeks pregnant, soon discovered she had lost the baby as a result of the attack.
“We believe in faith, and it wasn’t meant to be,” she said about the baby she lost. “So, we don’t know why this happened to us.”
“They didn’t steal anything. They said like, ‘We own the street. We own the street. You can’t walk around,'” Nina told Fox 32.
The group of teenagers did not steal anything from the couple, and based on Nina’s account, were only in it for the criminal mischief.
“They dragged my dress on the ground, and they said, like, ‘We own the street. You can’t just walk around prancing in your little dress,'” she recounted.
“And they were saying things that just didn’t make any sense to me because they don’t know me personally.”
Chicago alderman calls for upgraded charges after couple was attacked
In the aftermath of the attack, Alderman Brian Hopkins reached out to the state’s attorney’s office, advocating for the charges to be increased to a felony. “Both victims suffered extensive injuries,” he told the outlet. “The current misdemeanor charge is entirely inappropriate.”
Hopkins, serves as the chairman of the Public Safety Committee, told WGN News that large groups of teenagers have been rallying at a local theater after coordinating on social media.
“We have no problem with teens talking to teens and hanging out downtown; when they cross the line into criminality, that’s when we have a problem, and that is in fact what’s happening,” he remarked.
“This recent incident with the Streeterville couple being attacked randomly, unfortunately it wasn’t the first, and our fear is it won’t be the last.”
Hopkins issued a public safety alert to Streeterville residents after the attack, and is trying to put an 8:00 p.m. curfew in place for the area for minors who are not accompanied by an adult.
“This was violence, for the sake of violence, which in many ways makes that even more disturbing because it can literally happen to anyone at any time in this neighborhood,” he said about the attack.
Chicago lawmakers blasted after couple was randomly attacked by teen mob
Chicago Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) President John Catanzara criticized the city’s crime rate following the incident.
On Wednesday, Fox host Laura Ingraham asked Catanzara about the “point” of the attack since the couple wasn’t robbed.
“Well, some of it’s thrill,” Catanzara replied. “It’s ludicrous; they keep trying to pitch that this city is safer. It doesn’t feel safer to anybody.”
“Traditionally safe locations and neighborhoods within this city are experiencing crime at record rates,” he snarked about the rhetoric of the city’s liberal lawmakers.
“That’s just a simple fact,” he added. “And you can’t get away from that number no matter how much they say about murders being down.”
Homicides in the city were down 14% in 2023 from the year prior, but the figure is actually 50% higher than a decade ago.
Violent crime, like what happened to Nina and her husband, increased by 11.5% between 2022 and 2023, yet arrest rates have steadily fallen in the last ten years according to Illinois Policy Institute.
Ingraham questioned if the Black Lives Matter riots in 2020 were “inflection points” for teenagers and the FOP President said that they were, but pointed towards a different societal issue.
He believes that technology has stunted the younger generation’s ability to develop “relationships on a personal level” for their apathy to the pain of other humans.
“That also leads to this whole thing, too,” Catanzara replied. “Everything is almost like this fantasy world where there are no consequences, and no real death. But, you know, reality says quite otherwise.”
