A man is facing multiple felony charges after authorities said he tried to blow up a gas station on New Year’s Eve in the far northwest suburbs.
On Dec. 31, Woodstock Police officers responded to reports of a person struck multiple times in the retail store of a local Shell Gas Station at around 10:15 a.m., police said. According to the McHenry County state’s attorney’s office, Austin Silverman, 29, of Woodstock, approached a clerk at the station’s store and sought a job application, which was declined.
Silverman then became “enraged, crossed the threshold behind the counter, and attacked the clerk, punching and kicking her repeatedly,” the office said. Silverman left the store and then unsuccessfully attempted to extinguish a cigarette into a gas pump.
The clerk was severely injured, prosecutors said. Police identified Silverman, who, after attempting to blow up the station, tried to go back inside the store, through surveillance footage.
McHenry State’s Attorney Randi Freese, in a statement, called the incident a “brutal, heinous, and unprovoked attack on a defenseless woman.”
Silverman has been charged with one count of attempted first-degree murder and one count of aggravated battery in a public place. Appearing in court on Friday, he was denied pre-trial release. His next court appearance is scheduled for Wednesday.
