A 37-year-old woman has been arrested for the eighth time in six months for carrying out a string of unprovoked, random attacks on the West Side while she was AWOL from a separate battery case.
Prosecutors say Diamond Miller was in AWOL status from a pending misdemeanor battery case when she allegedly attacked three people within minutes near Pulaski Road and Cermak Road around noon on December 21.
The first attack occurred on a southbound CTA #53 Pulaski bus, where a 33-year-old man asked Miller to quiet down so he could hear his wife during a phone call, prosecutors said in a detention petition. Miller approached the man and struck him in the face “with great force,” causing him to experience “pain and dizziness,” according to the filing. The bus driver stopped at Pulaski and Cermak and summoned police and EMS.
Meanwhile, Miller exited the bus and walked to a nearby bus shelter, prosecutors said. At 12:17 p.m., a second victim and her friend approached the shelter where Miller was acting erratically and telling them to give her space, according to prosecutors. The victim and her friend walked away eastbound, but Miller allegedly followed them.
While the victim stood on the sidewalk with her back turned, Miller approached from behind and struck her in the face with a white plastic bag containing a hard object that felt like ice, the victim told police. The victim called 911.
A couple of minutes later, Miller had returned to the bus shelter when a 54-year-old woman and her 74-year-old mother approached while switching bus lines, according to prosecutors. Miller yelled at them and accused them of following her, the detention filing said. The daughter helped her mother, who uses a walker, away from the shelter, but Miller allegedly followed them and continued yelling.
The daughter saw a CTA bus idling on the corner and asked the driver if her mother could board and wait until the next bus arrived, but the driver declined, according to the filing. As the woman and her mother walked away, Miller allegedly struck the woman in the face with a broken beer bottle. The second victim saw the attack and recorded part of it with her phone, prosecutors said. The woman began bleeding immediately and sustained cuts to her face and a deep laceration to her bottom lip.
The first victim was taken to St. Anthony Hospital for treatment of minor injuries. The third victim received five stitches, prosecutors said.
Judge Robert Kuzas detained Miller, who is charged with three counts of aggravated battery and one count of aggravated assault of a person older than 60.
Records show that Miller failed to appear in court on a pending misdemeanor battery charge on December 2. Rather than issue a warrant, Judge Peter Gonzalez ordered the court clerk to send Miller a postcard reminding her of her court dates, according to court records.
Miller received three days in jail for four retail theft cases in October. A fifth retail theft case was dropped in November, even though she didn’t appear in court because the store’s representative didn’t show up either, according to court records. A separate misdemeanor battery case was dropped in August.
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