In late July, police said Quinton Joiner stabbed a CTA worker in the neck after the transit employee accidentally sprayed her with water while power washing the State-Lake L platform.
Despite the violence of the attack — and that it targeted an on-the-job CTA employee, which is a felony in itself — prosecutors only charged Joiner with a misdemeanor.
She pleaded guilty less than a month later in exchange for a sentence of probation, records show.
Over the weekend, Joiner brandished a knife and stole a purse from a woman who was attending a wedding in Millennium Park, according to police records.
Once again, she is only charged with misdemeanors. Joiner walked out of the local police station on her own recognizance less than seven hours later.
The latest incident took place around 4 p.m. Saturday, October 16, as the 34-year-old victim was attending a wedding near a gazebo on the 300 block of East Randolph, according to CPD records.
Joiner, 37, took the woman’s purse and brandished a knife before two men who were also at the wedding pinned her down, according to a CPD report.
No injuries were reported.
CPD records show Joiner is charged with misdemeanor theft and misdemeanor aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. She was arrested at 4:31 p.m. and walked out of the local CPD station at 11:11 p.m. the same day, according to police.
The alleged assault and theft came two months after Joiner was placed on a one-year probation for stabbing the CTA worker.
Judge Gerardo Tristan Jr. accepted Joiner’s guilty plea to one count of misdemeanor battery on August 25 and handed down the sentence. During the same hearing, Tristan “unsatisfactorily terminated” Joiner’s probation in another misdemeanor battery case that had been lingering since 2015.
Court records show Joiner repeatedly failed to appear in court for years in that matter and a series of arrest warrants were issued and executed beginning in May 2017.
Joiner’s criminal court file in Cook County has at least 20 entries, primarily for battery and retail theft. Her two most serious charges — a 2008 firearms case and 2007 robbery allegations — were both dropped by prosecutors, according to court records.
Judge Tristan’s name may sound familiar. Earlier this month, he sentenced 32-year-old Gary Coleman to eight months conditional discharge for misdemeanor battery three days after Coleman knocked a 60-year-old woman unconscious on a Loop sidewalk.
As in Joiner’s attack against the CTA worker, prosecutors only charged Coleman — who exhibited clear signs of mental illness during court appearances — with a misdemeanor for attacking the woman.
One day after Tristan released Coleman on conditional discharge, Coleman attacked and seriously injured a 66-year-old woman who was in town for the Chicago marathon. The woman suffered head and wrist injuries after she was thrown or fell from the Cermak Red Line platform during the attack, prosecutors said.
Coleman is now held without bail.
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