With three more violent crimes on the CTA since Friday night, officials still have no answers about actions against violent crime
CHICAGO (CBS) -- CBS 2 pushed for answers about violent crime on the CTA Monday – in the wake of a shooting, a stabbing, and another attack added to the list of crimes on our public transit since Friday night.
As CBS 2's Tara Molina reported, the crime statistics tell the story unto themselves – and they are figures we continue to bring to city departments. We want to know what's being done to address the recent spike - with overall crime connected to the CTA up this year - and questions about whether the city's current plan is working.
Last month, officials announced an increase of unarmed security guards on the CTA. What's actually happening with that?
"I haven't seen any of the increased security, and I ride transit quite a bit." said Jim Wales, president of South Loop Neighbors.
Wales isn't the only one.
Since the plan for unarmed security guards was announced last month in an effort to curb crime, we haven't heard much about those guards. City departments have refused to answer our questions directly related to them.
All while, we've tracked continued crime on our public transit. We mapped out the recent crimes on the CTA and brought all of them back to Chicago Police.
On Friday evening at 6:12 p.m., a fight at the Roosevelt Road 'L' and subway station in the South Loop led to a stabbing. A man was stabbed in the chest, and the fight then made its way onto the street - where the assailants punched and kicked the man while he was on the ground, police said.
At 10:30 a.m. Saturday in an attack connected to the Pink Line, a 40-year-old woman was smoking a cigarette near the Harold Washington Library-State/Van Buren stop when someone came up and asked her for a cigarette. When she refused, the person told her he had a gun, smacked the cigarette out of her hand and hit her repeatedly before running away north on State Street.
Around 12:14 a.m. Sunday, a 31-year-old man got shot on a CTA bus in Lawndale. The man got into a fight with was in a verbal altercation with another man while on the CTA bus traveling north on Pulaski Road near Polk Street.
The driver of the bus stopped after hearing multiple shots. The gunman ran off.
Has anyone been arrested and charged in any of those crimes - or the others we tracked last week?
In the stabbing at the Roosevelt stop, police said five juveniles were charged.
Two of them were boys just 12 years old. The others were boys ages 14, 16, and 17. All were charged with reckless conduct and trespassing on Chicago Transit Authority property without paying. One of the 12-year-old boys was specifically charged with reckless conduct causing bodily harm, while the other was charged with bringing weapons onto the CTA.
All of the rest of the attacks in recent days are still under investigation.
So with no suspects identified or in custody, why aren't police sharing images of those behind those crimes?
Police said in a statement: "If detectives have any video to share with the public, they will create a Community Alert, which our office will disseminate at that time."
A group in the South Loop doesn't think the current response, or the addition of unarmed security officers, is enough.
"I don't know if they're being applied to other locations," Wales said. "We have a system that needs to be fixed."
That is why South Loop Neighbors is hosting a meeting Wednesday to address safety concerns and perceptions directly with the CTA and CPD. Details are below, and a registration form can be found here.
Crime and CTA Presentation Press Release by Adam Harrington on Scribd
With CTA crime overall on the rise, we ran the numbers - and we've already tracked a significant rise in battery, robbery, and theft this year compared to the same timeframe last year.
"It's a complex issue that needs to be addressed by a multitude of agencies," Wales said.
But not all of those agencies are addressing the issue - not with us. The Mayor's office didn't address our questions last week and still had not done so as of late Monday.
CTA officials haven't addressed specific questions yet either.
