CHICAGO — Two women were robbed in about 10 minutes Monday afternoon in Lincoln Park, according to Chicago police. They were targeted in the same area where at least nine people were robbed in late May and early this month.
A 26-year-old woman told police she was robbed while walking in the 600 block of West Armitage around 4:23 p.m., a CPD spokesperson said. The robber approached her from behind, pushed her, and took her phone. Then he escaped in a white four-door sedan, according to police.
Another woman was targeted as she walked in the 2200 block of North Geneva Terrace around 4:32 p.m. The 30-year-old said the offender came up from behind and took her phone. He also fled in a white sedan, police said.
CPD did not release descriptions of the robbers.
Earlier robberies
A string of robberies that popped up in the area a couple of weeks ago occurred at night. They were also different in that multiple robbers confronted victims and implied that they had firearms:
- A little before 11 p.m. on May 28, a woman called 911 to report that two men tried to rob her and a friend as they sat on a bench in Oz Park. The woman who called for help bolted from the park, leaving her friend behind.
- About 20 minutes later, a 26-year-old woman was knocked to the ground and robbed in the 2200 block of North Sheffield, according to CPD. The offender escaped in a light-colored vehicle.
- Two DePaul students, ages 19 and 20, were robbed at gunpoint in the 1300 block of West Fullerton around 4:15 a.m. on May 29. The men were walking when two offenders exited a black car to rob them. After the holdup, the victims went to University Hall, a DePaul residence hall, and a security officer called 911, identifying them as students.
- A 37-year-old woman was carjacked by two men who implied they had weapons at 11:39 p.m. on May 29, police said. She was getting into her car in the 2300 block of North Halsted, directly in front of DePaul’s School of Music building, when they took her black Volkswagen Jetta.
- On June 1, four young women were robbed while walking together in Lincoln Park shortly after midnight in the 700 block of West Webster, Chicago police said. A robber punched one woman in the face. One of them tried to run away, but she fell to the ground, and a robber grabbed her buttocks, then proceeded with the robbery, police said.
‘More patrols’
In the wake of the robberies, Ald. Timmy Knudsen (43rd) sent his constituents a reassuring email on June 2.
“Our police are sending additional patrol vehicles and tactical missions to the area,” the freshman alder wrote. “We will continue to advocate for strategies including consistent police presence in the 43rd Ward and a robust community policing approach.”
But CWBChicago learned that two evenings later, the entire 18th Police District was patrolled by just 11 beat officers in five squad cars. One sergeant supervised them. The district’s two squadrols, “paddy wagons” for the politically incorrect, were not staffed. According to the schedule for the evening of June 4, there were no “rapid response” units and no lakefront patrols.
No beat cars were assigned to patrol the area between Fullerton and North avenues where the robberies were occurring, the schedule showed.
Knudsen touched on the issue again in his June 9 newsletter, boldfacing CPD’s “commitment to a physical presence in our Ward.”