Woman, 71, stabbed in broad daylight in front of Chicago's Union Station; suspect charged
CHICAGO (CBS) –A 71-year-old woman was stabbed and critically hurt Wednesday afternoon near Union Station in the West Loop in downtown Chicago.
A suspect was arrested on the spot, and charged the following day.
The woman was near the sidewalk in the 200 block of South Canal Street around 1:30 p.m. when a male offender stabbed her multiple times with a sharp object, police said. Her husband told CBS 2 the victim, Arlene Rado, was walking their dog Mickey when the attack happened.
He said the offender grabbed his wife by the neck from behind and stabbed her seven times in the neck – as well as several times throughout her back.
The attacker then fled but was tracked down by a good Samaritan, Alan Rado, Arlene's husband said. Police arrested the suspected offender a couple of blocks away on Tilden Street, alongside the Eisenhower Expressway a couple of blocks away from Union Station.
The suspect, Wilson Barreno, 25, of Oakland, California, was charged Thursday with attempted first-degree murder, aggravated battery causing great bodily harm to a person over 60, and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.
Stabbings have become all too familiar in Chicago lately. In the last month alone, there have been multiple incidents, multiple victims, and multiple suspects.
Retired law enforcement officer Mylan Masson provided her expertise as to why.
"The knives are very accessible. They also have no noise to them like a gun would," Masson said. "They're easy to carry, and they also have, you know, they're very effective to harm people."
In the Loop recently, a quarrel turned into a stabbing inside a Ross Dress for Less near State and Randolph streets. A fight also turned into a stabbing outside the Chicago Theatre.
"We were just thinking about this the other day, because we've been seening so much going on in the news. So we wondered - if it will ever happen to us, how will we take it?" said Alan Rado "Lo and behold, it was just the other day. So it's just all pretty bizarre. It's like I feel like I'm writing a movie script as I talk with you."
Alan Rado spoke with CBS 2 outside Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Streeterville, where his wife was undergoing treatment late Wednesday as the latest stabbing victim.
"I was just speaking with my friend when Arlene called me to tell me that she was in dire straits," said Alan Rado. "She said she had been stabbed, so, 'Come get me.'"
The stabbing happened near the Rados' home of nearly 20 years. Alan Rado emphasized that his wife was not robbed – she was attacked for no apparent reason.
"And it wasn't like this guy wanted to steal her purse. It just happened," Alan Rado said. "Like she said, 'He grabbed me from behind, started stabbing me, and then ran away."
Alan Rado was shocked when he got the call that his wife had been so brutally attacked. But hours later, something else left him in disbelief.
"I don't think about this happening in the middle of the day on a Wednesday at 1:30 - around Union Station?" he said.
A CBS 2 camera spotted Chicago and Amtrak police officers setting up crime tape around a section of the main entrance on Canal Street. Police were conducting their investigation both inside and around Union Station.
At the scene, police collected a backpack and what appeared to be a Swiss Army knife as they arrested the suspect.
Arlene Rado was initially reported in critical condition when she was taken to the hospital. She will stay there overnight, but she is expected to make a full recovery.
Reached on Thursday, Alan Rado said his wife is improving and could be released from the hospital soon.
He said he would like to take the people who helped "to a nice lunch or a great dinner. They deserve it for what they did. They went above and beyond to help my wife and also to catch this perpetrator."