It’s been more than two months since Amy Wheeler was mugged near Division Street and Damen Avenue as she walked home from the “L.”
Wheeler, 29, never saw her attacker’s face, but what she did see rattled her. So much so that the technical writer has left Chicago. She just needs some peace.
“I haven’t gone out a lot,” she said. “I am probably not going to go to the city any time soon. … It just doesn’t feel safe.”
Wheeler is just one of thousands of people who are robbed on Chicago’s streets each year. Through the end of July, robberies — which include muggings like Wheeler’s and those in which a weapon is used — were up 1.1 percent. Strong-arm robberies, those without a weapon, were down.
The attacks have become a focal point for the city with recent reports of vicious, knock-down assaults and a string of armed stickups.
The incidents stretch across the city, including holdups at South Side Metra stations and a string of nine armed robberies in Roseland and West Pullman on the Far South Side. A series of beatings and robberies on the North Side has drawn attention because of the malicious nature of the attacks and because they are happening in neighborhoods with comparatively few violent incidents.
The robberies, in general, have captured people’s attention for a reason, experts say.
“I have always contended that armed robbers are among the most dangerous group of criminals,” said Art Lurigio, professor of psychology and criminal justice at Loyola University Chicago. “They are in a person’s face, eyeball-to-eyeball, taking possessions with brute force or threat of force.”
In the past 12 months, there have been 16,690 robberies in the city, according to unofficial Chicago police statistics.
Chicago detectives are chasing at least two established robbery patterns in the city.
An alert has been issued for the armed robberies along Halsted Street between 111th and 116th Streets in West Pullman and Roseland, Pullman Area Property Crimes Sgt. Tim Koren said. “They hit on Halsted and go into the neighborhoods, which is all residential,” Koren said. “Somebody knows who they are.”
There also is an alert out for the Lincoln Park attacks, which were marked by violent beatings from behind, including one that left a victim with a broken jaw.
Lurigio said he finds robberies to be particularly troubling because of how random and, at times, senseless they are. They can leave victims with symptoms of post-traumatic stress.
“It’s your sense of the world being predictable — shattered,” Lurigio said. “It’s your sense of safety — shattered.”
Getting attacked certainly shattered Wheeler’s sense of safety, she said. In the days following, she walked with pepper spray in one hand, a whistle in the other.
She remains haunted by not knowing what her attacker really wanted that night.
“It’s probably someone who wanted the cash,” she said. “But what if the guy wants to teach you a lesson for fighting back? What would have happened if he actually dragged me into the alley?”
