A 26-year-old man was attacked by a group and stabbed in the arm at the Cermak/ McCormick Place Green Line station in the South Loop late Wednesday, marking the third such attack at a downtown CTA station in as many days, according to Chicago police.
The 26-year-old had been standing on the CTA “L” platform at 12 E. Cermak Road around 10 p.m. when three people approached him and demanded his property, according to an online media notification from Chicago police. All three assailants then assaulted him, with one pulling a knife and stabbing the man once in his right arm, authorities said.
The assailants “managed to take the victim’s property” and the 26-year-old ran away from the group. He soon realized he had suffered a wound to his arm and sought treatment at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he had been listed in good condition, officials said.
It was at least the third report of violence at a CTA station this week.
Around 8:35 p.m. Monday the operator of a Red Line train that was stopped at the Granville station in Edgewater was apparently lured from the train by a person claiming to need help retrieving a cellphone that had fallen onto the tracks. Police haven’t said whether it was a ruse, but when the train operator left the train and began searching for the allegedly missing phone, he was shoved onto the tracks. He didn’t hit the electrified third rail, police said, but he was hurt.
Late Tuesday police were called to the Red Line Lake/State station in the Loop for a report that around 11:10 p.m. a 43-year-old man was beaten by a group of people.
Police have not said whether they suspect the three recent attacks are related or are being carried out by the same group of people. Two attacks were along the Red Line, one in Edgewater and the other in the Loop, while the most recent attack was along the Green Line in the South Loop.
Just last month the CTA said it would boost the presence of security guards on its busiest lines in an effort to deter rule-breaking and to address “potential safety concerns,” the Tribune reported.
That decision came in part due to a spike in violent crime even amid plummeting ridership during the pandemic. At the end of 2020, a Tribune analysis of CTA and police data determined violent crime on the “L” system had more than doubled.
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