IMPECCABLE TIMING (UPDATED): Battery Victim Seeks Help At Broadway Youth Center

UPDATE JANUARY 31: CWB has confirmed that the BYC client was injured in the event that was reported as “15 people fighting” on the street at 2:50PM.
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It looks like the Broadway Youth Center (BYC) “Good Neighbor Agreement” is going to get an early test.

Just two days after BYC received a zoning variance to operate on a residential street, a victim reported that he was beaten up by a known offender near Wellington and Broadway at 3PM Thursday.

When police arrived, they were informed that the victim had gone to the Broadway Youth Center, 615 W. Wellington, to have a leg injury treated.

After receiving treatment, the victim was escorted by officers to the Center on Halsted, 3656 N. Halsted, in the belief that the attacker may have gone there. It does not appear that they were successful in their hunt for the offender, who is described as male, black, wearing a red hat and black jacket. He was in the company of other males at the time of the attack.

A battery report has been filed. The case number is HX124943.

Just 10 minutes before this victim’s 911 call came in, officers handled another call of 15 people fighting on the street at 3023 N. Broadway, about a half-block north of Wellington. It is not clear if the two incidents are related.

Under the terms of the BYC’s Good Neighbor Agreement,

BYC staff or volunteers will monitor the Facility and immediate proximity to the Facility on days when BYC program participants are present during the regular hours of operation of the BYC programs. BYC staff or volunteers will have additional monitoring presence for one (1) hour before and for one (1) hour after the BYC Drop-in program begins and ends on days when this program is offered.

The drop-in program ended at 3PM Thursday, about 4 minutes before the victim’s 911 call.

UPDATE 12:40PM
We asked Howard Brown Health Center General Counsel Michelle Wetzel about Thursday’s incident.

Wetzel reports that,

[BYC] staff was present and helped break up the situation and escorted the youth back to the BYC where our nurse cleaned up and bandaged the youth’s knee. In the meantime, the youth had called the police himself. The police came and met the youth at the BYC. The youth then went with the police to help the police identify his assailants.

Thursdays incident has been investigated and documented as called for by the Good Neighbor Agreement, Wetzel says. “This is exactly how our system is designed to work and it worked perfectly.”

In a related development, Wetzel tells us that BYC is in the process of expanding the “monitoring area” that center staff will patrol beyond the front of their operation.

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