Man Stabs 3 Random Victims At Southwest Side Walgreens
UPDATED 08/02/11 4:10 p.m.
CHICAGO (CBS) -- It was a frightening scene in a Southwest Side Walgreens drugstore Thursday morning, after a man walked in and stabbed an employee and two customers for no apparent reason.
As CBS 2's Mike Puccinelli reports, around 1 a.m., a man believed to be in his 20s walked into the Walgreens at 5435 S. Kedzie Ave. in the Gage Park neighborhood. He was wearing a hood, and had a butcher knife in hand.
Once inside, he began slashing people randomly.
A male employee and two women were injured. Both of the women injured in the incident were customers.
"I thought it was a movie, I'm like, 'Are you shooting a movie or something?' It was just crazy," said witness Ivonne Alvarez.
Alvarez heard the commotion when police responded to the 911 call.
"All of a sudden, we just see a whole bunch of cops, probably like about 20 cop cars came," she said.
Officers spotted the suspect leaving the premises and subdued him. But it wasn't easy.
"One of the cops came out with a guy arrested, with very long hair, black pants, kind of like a rocker style, and just actually pushed him against the cop car and got him in there, and the guy just looking like he was kicking the cop," Alvarez said. "Even his shoe flew off."
The investigators who went inside found a bloody scene. The 35-year-old male worker was stabbed in the hand, a 66-year-old woman was slashed in the chest, and a 40-year-old woman was stabbed in the abdomen, arm and thigh.
"You could just see that she had her hand wrapped; I think her hand got injured. I heard her leg got injured as well. Another ambulance comes and takes another woman in there," Alvarez said.
The male employee was released from Mount Sinai Hospital Tuesday afternoon.
Family members of the woman stabbed in the chest have asked information not be released about her condition. No condition was available for the other woman.
The knife was recovered at the scene, and the man was taken into custody. As of 4 p.m., there were no charges in the case.
Police told WBBM Newsradio 780's Regine Schlesinger the suspect was at a hospital undergoing a psychiatric evaluation.
Alvarez says that the victims said the suspect had been at the same Walgreens the day before, causing trouble.
Sources say the appeared to be on drugs.
Police say the violence was completely random in the bizarre case.
The Sun-Times Media Wire contributed to this report.
