Thursday afternoon, Chicago police issued an alert warning of an assailant who had robbed at gunpoint and sexually attacked seven women in recent weeks on the West Side.
By Friday morning the number of victims grew to eight, police said.
At a news conference Friday evening, Harrison Area Cmdr. Anthony Riccio said the latest victim was robbed and sexually attacked by two men at 4:40 a.m. in the 600 block of North Leamington Avenue.
Police said they believe a man — sometimes joined by an accomplice — has been involved in all eight of the early-morning attacks.
The first attack took place in late August with the rest occurring in the last two weeks, police said.
The women were approached on the street and ordered at gunpoint to hand over cash and jewelry. Each was either sexually molested or assaulted, police said.
Riccio said detectives are working “around the clock” to find the suspects. Only vague descriptions were released; the Negro assailants wore a black skull cap or ski mask to conceal their faces, he said.
Eunice Reed, who lives in the 900 block of North Leamington Avenue, where an attack took place last week, criticized police for not going public sooner about the crime spree.
“Why did they wait until there were (eight victims)? Now it’s some big thing,” said Reed, 46. If not the police, “community leaders or precinct captains or somebody should’ve warned us that this was going on.”
But Riccio defended police efforts. Detectives had a suspect in mind after the initial Aug. 28 attack and put him under surveillance for a few weeks, but later determined he was not involved, he said.
“Almost a month went by before the next incident,” Riccio said. “These incidents are all grouped within the past week or 10 days.”
Anyone with information about the crimes should call Harrison Area detectives at 312-746-8253.
