CHICAGO — The man who pushed a CTA passenger onto the tracks from a Blue Line platform last summer has been sentenced to two years. James Stamps, 29, pleaded guilty to felony aggravated battery and received the sentence from Judge Sophia Atcherson. He will be released in August after serving half of that time.
Stamps was on the Illinois Medical District platform around 6:45 a.m. on August 5, 2022, when he pushed a 26-year-old Portage Park man onto the tracks below, officials said. The victim suffered injuries to his left shoulder and abdomen.
Hoping to drum up leads, Chicago police released CTA surveillance footage of the incident two days later.
As it turned out, Chicago cops arrested Stamps twice in the hours following the attack, but no one linked him to the CTA attack until two weeks later. After pushing the man from the platform, Stamps went to Rush University Medical Center for treatment of an unspecified injury.
Stamps, dissatisfied with the services provided by hospital staff, went outside and threw a rock through one of the building’s windows, shattering it. Hospital security detained Stamps for the police, who reported hearing Stamps say he smashed the window because his feet hurt and he needed a place to lie down and eat.
He was charged with misdemeanor criminal damage to property and walked out of the Near West (12th) District police station on his own recognizance at 3:20 p.m., according to CPD records.
Stamps was arrested again in the South Loop less than two hours later after he threw rocks at a ComEd worker and the victim’s work truck in the 1500 block of South Clark, a Chicago police report said.
Prosecutors dropped both of the misdemeanor cases on August 22. As Stamps prepared to leave the courthouse, Chicago police arrested him to face charges in the CTA attack.