Chicago police officers intervened in an armed robbery that they stumbled upon while on patrol in Lincoln Square on Sunday morning, but the offenders sped away in a car as the cops pointed guns at them, according to a preliminary CPD report. Earlier, a nine-year-old girl and her mother were robbed in West Town while walking home with laundry.
At least ten more robberies were reported in two waves of crimes that rolled over the north and near west sides of Chicago this morning and Saturday evening. The areas have been hard hit by dozens of similar crimes that have popped up in nighttime sprees since mid-November, with 34 robberies known to have been reported since Friday morning.
Around 3:12 a.m., Chicago police patrol officers were on routine patrol when they saw an armed robbery in progress on the corner of Sunnyside and Hamilton, the preliminary report said. The cops emerged from their squad car and drew their guns on four men who were trying to rob another man.
But the crew jumped into a dark-colored Hyundai and reversed down Hamilton, slammed into a parked car at high speed, and then fled east on Wilson Avenue, according to a CPD crash report.
Officers found several items discarded in the area that might be proceeds taken from other robbery victims, including a backpack, purse, and a wallet.
Another armed robbery was reported in nearby North Center at 3:28 a.m., a Chicago police spokesperson said. In that case, a 32-year-old woman and a 35-year-old man were in the 4300 block of North Damen when two robbers emerged from a dark sedan and demanded their property at gunpoint. The robbers pistol-whipped the man in his face during the holdup, police said.
About 30 minutes earlier, just before 3 a.m., four men carrying two guns robbed a man in the 3900 block of North Troy. They fled in a small, dark-colored sedan with his cash, phone, and car keys.
Two more robberies were reported in West Town early Sunday, according to CPD reports:
- Four men exited a blue sedan and robbed a man of his wallet and keys outside a business in the 1500 block of West Augusta around 2:15 a.m.
- The same crew is suspected of robbing a man at gunpoint in the 900 block of North Damen around 2:20 a.m.
West Town saw at least five more robberies on Saturday evening, starting just before 8 p.m. in the 2100 block of West Ohio. There, a man said three masked robbers stepped out of a dark green Kia and robbed him at gunpoint.
About 20 minutes later, a 27-year-old woman and her 9-year-old daughter were walking home from doing laundry when two robbers pushed the woman to the ground and robbed her at knifepoint in the 1400 block of West Superior, a CPD spokesperson said.
The offenders took the victims’ laundry and a coin purse and escaped in a green sedan. Police said the woman declined medical attention for herself and her daughter.
Then, around 8:40 p.m.., three men riding in a green Kia Sol robbed a woman in the 2200 block of West Erie. Police later found the woman’s phone discarded in the 1300 block of North Ashland, a CPD report said.
And just after 9 p.m., two robbers jumped out of a green Kia and robbed a woman of her purse and phone as she waited for an Uber in the 2400 block of West Iowa. A report said the woman, who works as a hairstylist, also lost her expensive haircutting tools to the offenders.
In addition to all of those incidents, a man walked into Ascension St. Mary Hospital, 2233 West Division, around 3 a.m. for treatment of a head injury that he suffered when armed robbers punched him in the head. The crew took the man’s wallet and phone at gunpoint, but it was not immediately known where the robbery occurred.
On Friday evening, seven women were robbed, and another was carjacked during a crime spree in Wicker Park, Bucktown, and West Town. At least fourteen people were robbed during a two-hour crime wave that stretched from the Lower West Side to Irving Park on Friday morning.
On November 25, at least nine robberies were reported during daylight robbery sprees in West Town and West Ridge. Four days earlier, three similar robberies were reported in Humboldt Park, Wicker Park, and Logan Square.
On November 19, a string of robberies and hijackings were reported from West Ridge to the Loop. And on Thursday, November 17, a group of six to eight male and female offenders traveled in two cars to carry out a series of robberies and carjackings that stretched across the north and northwest sides.
Police have issued community alerts about robberies in the affected areas, but no arrests have been announced.