CTA employees don't feel safe coming to work after violent incidents, union says
In the last week, at least two Chicago Transit Authority employees have found themselves at the center of a crime — both times on the Blue Line along the Eisenhower Expressway on the city's West Side.
Union leaders now say their members who work for the CTA continue to worry about their safety — to the point where many do not want to come to work.
Police said just after 2 p.m. Wednesday at the Loomis Street entrance mezzanine for the Racine Avenue Blue Line stop, at the Eisenhower Expressway near Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, the University of Illinois Chicago, and the Illinois Medical District, a 19-year-old man started to attack a glass booth with a blunt object.
CBS News Chicago is told the blunt object in question was an orange traffic cone, and is also told the teenager approached the 36-year-old CTA worker who was in the booth and asked her to call police because he said he was going to kill her.
The worker was able to hide in a bathroom before police arrested and charged Nature Place, 19, of the Logan Square neighborhood. Place is charged with one felony count of aggravated battery to a transit employee, and misdemeanor counts of aggravated assault and criminal damage to property.
Earlier this week at the Cicero Avenue Blue Line stop in the South Austin neighborhood, a 30-year-old man was on the sidewalk at the station entrance when a black Nissan went by, and someone started shooting — striking the victim multiple times. The victim was taken to Stroger Hospital of Cook County in critical condition.
A CTA employee was also hospitalized following this incident, after witnesses said she was overwhelmed by the shooting.
Union leaders who represent CTA employees on trains say the transit agency has not been investing enough in its members' safety.
"They just allow the individuals, or the assaultants, to be placed on another train — and they go on their way," said Amalgamated Transit Union Local 308 President and Business Agent Pennie McCoach, "and this is very, very disheartening, because my members don't feel safe. They don't want to come to work. They don't want to come to work in this environment, and CTA is not doing anything to make it any better for their employees."
CTA leaders are renewing their push for a dedicated police force to patrol the transit system.
"[Employees] tell me, 'Ms. Penny, I want to go home from work the way I came. I didn't come to work to be assaulted, spat on, or cut,'" McCoach said.
Additionally, ATU Local 308 wants bulletproof glass, and a faster officer response time to protect employees and riders.
"What's happening is not working," said ATU Local 308 First Vice President Mark Weems. "If we want to be a transit system that is going to be something the nation can be proud of, we first have to secure the passengers that will ride it and the everyday individuals that will come out, leave their homes to service the city of Chicago."
There have not been any arrests in the Cicero Avenue incident. In the one at the Racine Avenue station entrance, Place appeared before a judge on Thursday and was released on electronic monitoring.
