| 7/26/2007 7:13:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article |
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| Bruce Kraig |
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Daylight assaults have neighborhood on edge
2 unprovoked attacks were half-block apart
By BILL DWYER
The neighborhoods on either side of the 100 and 200 blocks of South Ridgeland Avenue are on edge after two men were injured in separate daytime street attacks Sunday and Wednesday afternoons.
Just before 2 p.m. Sunday, a 56-year-old man suffered a head wound that required nine stitches following an attack by three boys as he washed his car in an alley behind the 200 block of South Ridgeland Avenue.
Three Chicago juveniles--two 14 years old and one 16 years old - were arrested a short time later in the 400 block of South Scoville Avenue.
Wednesday afternoon around 3:30 p.m., Bruce Kraig, 58, was walking westbound on Pleasant Street just east of the 200 block of Ridgeland when three boys, ages estimated to be 15 to 17, ran out of an alley and attacked him. Kraig fended off the youths, but suffered a hard blow to the side of his head that left him with a black eye and a knot on his forehead.
Police say that robbery did not appear to be a motive for either attack.
"I struggled with them, but one of them landed a blow on the side of my head," Kraig said.
"They didn't ask for money," he said. "It was obviously just an attack. They didn't say anything."
The three assailants ran off when a passing woman honked on her car horn and yelled at them.
Oak Park Deputy Police Chief Bob Scianna said the incidents appeared to be "unprovoked, senseless, violent attacks."
"It doesn't appear to be robbery," he said.
Race does not appear to be a motive either.
"It doesn't appear, from what we've seen, that race plays a part in selecting a victim," said Scianna. "It's the first poor soul you come across that piques your interest. The three Chicago kids were walking around and saw the man washing his car and said 'Let's mess with him.'"
Both Scianna and John FS Williams, director of Oak Park Township Youth Services, referred to the phenomenon of "gooning," in which a group of people, usually male teens, attacks random victims. The phenomenon is also referred to as "wilding."
"The dots aren't connecting for me in any meaningful way at this time," said Williams. "At this point they're just random acts of stupidity and violence."
Scianna said that police were investigating Kraig's case, and had good descriptions of the assailants. One of two witnesses to Kraig's attack followed the assailants to a nearby apartment complex, but lost sight of them there.
A possible related development is the appearance of graffiti vandalism on five garages in the area, which police and the Township Youth Commission are also investigating.
See next week's Wednesday Journal for further details.
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Reader Comments
Posted: Friday, August 10, 2007
Article comment by:
Mary Bradford
I think Oak Parkers will need to be more willing to press charges. I think a lot of people here have been soft on crime (including me) and have left teenagers go with just a warning. With the crime getting worse, we need to be harder on the criminals that we catch.
Posted: Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Article comment by:
James Mariner
Gee, maybe Oak Park can pass a symbolic ordinance against it. Not a hate crime, give me a break.
Suckerville, U.S.A.
Posted: Sunday, July 29, 2007
Article comment by:
keller
It's time the Oak Park Police Department and the village manager realize that Oak Park is at a critical point regarding street crime. Unless I'm walking along Lake Street, I now feel vunerable walking alone along the quiet residential streets even in daytime. Too many muggings, too many bike snatching, too many "random non-racial attacks". Let's stop candy-coating the issue and address the situation of young people coming from the surrounding communities (as well as possibly our own) to victimize our residents. Clearly these youth feel empowered and enboldened to attack at will. It is totally unacceptable to be unable to walk down your street, or wash your car in your alley without fear of attack.
Wednesday Journal should do an interview w/Oak Park's police chief and village manager to specifically address street-crime issue, and to determine whether there is any acccountability for the rising crime rate.
Telling us to be "careful" is not enough.
Posted: Friday, July 27, 2007
Article comment by:
G. Simon
I wonder if things would have turned out differently if Oak Park law allowed these gentlemen to carry a weapon?
Posted: Friday, July 27, 2007
Article comment by:
Mary Ellen Eads
The many liberal Oak Parkers no doubt say that these kids come from deprived homes and need more love and support and
free money.
But at the end of the day, if Oak Parkers can't walk around in the daytime without being assaulted....we have a big, big problem. The police can't station somebody on every block.
I used to walk in the evening but stopped after the South Oak Park murder
a couple of years ago. Now it looks like daytime walks are out too.
Increasingly, in Oak Park, the choice seems to be between living as a prisoner in your home or moving someplace safer.
Not a good development at all. And something our feckless Village Board appears uninterested in doing anything to change.
Their focus on providing huge giveaways to the business community could
prove misguided if people are afraid to live here.
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