Two women were mugged during separate incidents Tuesday afternoon in the North Center neighborhood. The robberies are the latest in a series of hold-ups that have swept through the area and nearby Lincoln Park and Lakeview since Sunday evening.
Investigators are exploring the possibility that two separate robbery crews may be responsible for the crimes — one team is armed, the other has not displayed firearms.
In addition to Tuesday’s robbery, a man was targeted in an armed hold-up attempt on Monday evening. In that case, two offenders approached the man on the 1400 block of West Henderson around 7 p.m. The offenders displayed a handgun and demanded the victim’s property. But he decided to scream a warning to others instead. The robbers fled empty-handed. They were described as two Black males between 20- and 25-years-old who wore masks and hoodies. The gunman reportedly stands about 6’1” tall.
Neither of Tuesday’s victims saw handguns when they were robbed, although the offenders told one victim they were armed.
One woman was robbed as she walked with her dog on the 3700 block of North Wolcott around 1:20 p.m., according to initial information from police. The offenders took the woman’s purse and fled southbound in a dark-colored sedan.
A few minutes earlier, the other woman reported being robbed by two men on the 1900 block of West Patterson.
Both victims said the robbers were Black men in their 20’s. One of the women described a robber as being about 6’2” tall, 175-180 pounds, and dressed in a gray long-sleeve shirt.
Sunday cases
Four separate robberies, including a carjacking, were reported Sunday evening in Lakeview and Lincoln Park.
• A man and woman were robbed by two offenders who demanded their phones on the 600 block of West Dickens around 7:20 p.m.
• About four minutes later and just a couple of blocks away, a food delivery driver was pulled out of his vehicle by two carjackers on the 2000 block of North Burling. The victim, age 55, told police he had just turned on the engine when the offenders dragged him out of his silver 2013 Nissan Sentra, according to CPD spokesperson Kellie Bartoli.
• Around 10:30 p.m., two robbers held-up a victim at gunpoint on the 1100 block of West Wellington. The victim was not injured, but he turned over his phone, ear pods, and wallet after one of the men ordered him to “gimme all your stuff,” according to a CPD report.
• Two would-be robbers placed a gun to the head of a clerk at Subway restaurant, 3815 North Broadway, shortly after 11 p.m. The clerk, who believed the weapon was a BB gun, pushed one of the offenders, and they ran away. They fled northbound on Broadway in a dark-colored car that has a shattered back window.
Area Three detectives are investigating the hold-ups.
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