CHICAGO — Prosecutors have charged a man with robbing a CTA customer at the Garfield Red Line station about a month after he was sentenced to 3 years in prison for, you guessed it, robbing a customer at the Garfield Red Line station.
A 26-year-old man was at the station early on September 2 when Kendall Hunter, 21, walked up and asked him for money, a Chicago police arrest report said. According to the report, Hunter then pointed a laser at the man and took his property. A criminal complaint identified the property as a White Sox hat.
When the victim tried to get his property back, Hunter punched him in the head and began beating him with a broom that he snatched from the CTA vestibule, the police report continued. The victim backed off after receiving cuts to his head, back, ear, and wrist from the broom.
Hunter ran when police arrived, springing onto the Red Line tracks before bounding onto the Dan Ryan Expressway, where he ran “back and forth across multiple lanes,” according to the arrest report. State troopers and Chicago cops eventually took him into custody. They allegedly found a “mini-gun shaped lighter” with a laser attachment in his pants pocket.
Police took Hunter to Mt. Sinai Hospital for unspecified reasons. While he was there, the report said, he repeatedly gratified himself in front of female CPD officers who were standing guard.
He’s charged with robbery, aggravated battery, public indecency, and misdemeanor battery. Judge Kelly McCarthy set bail at $100,000. He needs to post 10% of that to get out of jail.
Back on July 19, Hunter pleaded guilty to unlawful restraint in connection with a 2021 robbery at the Garfield Red Line station. Prosecutors dropped the robbery charge in the deal. He went to Stateville Correctional Center the next day, and, after having his sentence cut in half by law and having time served credits applied, he walked out hours later.
Hunter has previous felony convictions for resisting police causing injury and aggravated battery in a public place, both in 2016.