Two girls were injured after being struck by an out-of-control car Monday afternoon in the Back of the Yards neighborhood, leading a crowd to carry out what witnesses said was a thrashing of a teenage passenger with fists and a plastic chair.
Police said the victim of the alleged beating was not seriously hurt, but residents of the 5200 block of South Wolcott Avenue said the back-seat passenger was pounded until he was bloody.
“He got a little more than he bargained for,” said Chris Wilson, 28, who said he witnessed the beating from his house, where the errant car, a blue Pontiac Bonneville, had toppled a wrought iron fence.
It would be the second retaliation by a crowd after a traffic accident in a week in the Southwest Side neighborhood. Last week, a group of people allegedly beat truck driver Miguel Chavez after his 18-wheeler crushed a man about six blocks away, near West 51st Street and Ashland Avenue.
In Monday’s accident, which occurred about 3:30 p.m., the two girls suffered minor injuries, police said.
Vanessa Barton, who was standing near the scene of the accident, said her niece, Larita Walker, 6, and her sister, Kimberly Thomas, 15, were hit by the Pontiac.
Barton said Thomas was putting children in a parked car when the Pontiac , driving north on Wolcott, jumped a curb, hit a fire hydrant and plowed into the parked car and the girls before hitting the fence.
“It was going too fast,” she said.
Thomas lay on the front lawn, unable to feel her legs, Barton said. Larita could stand but may have injured her lower back because she couldn’t sit down, she added.
Both girls were taken to Mt. Sinai Hospital, where officials said that they were in stable condition. Monday night, Barton said Larita “was on her way out of the hospital” and that Thomas should be home soon.
The driver fled, running through a vacant lot, witnesses said. A male passenger in the back seat tried to flee, but a crowd broke the plastic chair over his head and then chased him as he tried to break free, witnesses said.
“He was trying to run until he got a couple jabs to the head,” Wilson said.
Barton said a girl was unconscious in the passenger seat of the Pontiac. Once authorities opened her door, “she just got up and walked away,” she said.
