A group of six people assaulted a 34-year-old man at the Jefferson Park Metra and CTA stations Tuesday morning, according to a witness and Chicago police, who took one man into custody at the scene.
The attack happened around 10 a.m. in the 4900 block of North Milwaukee Avenue, police said. A witness said the confrontation began when five or six people started harassing a man the witness described as homeless on the Metra platform.
“They grabbed his stuff and were messing with him and ganging up on him,” the witness said.
The group also ran back and forth across the Metra tracks between the platforms before the confrontation turned physical, according to the witness. The witness said the “main assailant” was wearing a red shirt and grabbed the victim before throwing multiple punches at him.
“He got a cut on his head and blood ran down his head,” the witness said.
Chicago police gave a similar account of the incident, but said the victim was outside the nearby CTA station when a group of six approached him. One man, later identified as 22-year-old Derrell Jackson, grabbed the victim, punched him in the head and kicked him in the head and body multiple times, a CPD spokesperson said. Paramedics treated the victim at the scene, police said.
The witness said he was searching for the responding officers when the group emerged from a stairwell and escalator area into the main CTA tunnel that runs over the Kennedy Expressway.
“Police happened to be there at the time and they stopped the group,” the witness said.
Jackson, of the 5900 block of West Gunnison Street, was taken into custody and charged with misdemeanor battery, the police spokesperson said. According to CPD records, Tuesday’s arrest was Jackson’s third since March 9 and court records show he was also arrested in Oak Park in December. All of the previous matters have been dropped. No charges were filed against other members of the group that the witness saw at the scene.
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