Assailant grabs jogger, cuts her with box cutter
EVANSTON -- A man brandishing a box cutter attacked a woman jogging in Evanston Saturday and cut her.
The 50-year-old Chicago woman was headed south in the 800 block of Sheridan Road at about 6:25 a.m. when the man grabbed her from behind, covered her mouth and placed the box cutter to her throat, said Evanston Police Deputy Chief Joseph Bellino.
As the woman broke loose and yelled for help, the assailant cut her and ran off, Bellino said. The suspect was described as African-American between 22 and 30 years old, 5 feet 8 to 5 feet 10 inches tall and about 180 pounds. He was wearing a black puffy coat with a hood, gloves and dark pants. Police are circulating a sketch of the suspect in the area, Bellino said. The woman, who received a 2-inch cut on her throat, was treated at the scene and refused further medical attention, he said.
Evanston police have contacted Chicago police to determine if the attack is related to recent attacks in the Rogers Park neighborhood just south of Evanston, Bellino said.
Copyright (c) 2006, Chicago Tribune
Updated:
Channel 5
Channel 7
16 comments:
Toto sez:
I carry a can of hairspray and a zippo lighter. Instant blow torch.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Much respect to you, LadyonFarwell, for being a survivor, and to Paradise for calling bullshit as needed. Some of the other people's comments are annoying, however.
I don't know if most men understand how belittled and insulted a woman feels when she's told that, if she becomes the victim of a violent crime while engaged in an activity in which she has a reasonable expectation of safety, it's her own damn fault because she didn't have any common sense. Obviously, we all have different ideas of what activities are sensible and which are not. But I think many would agree that jogging (and it wouldn't have made any difference if she was walking, or biking, or just standing on the corner waiting for the bus) at 6:30 in the morning when the sun is out on one of the main streets in Evanston is not exactly the same as jogging in the dark while taking a scenic tour of the local crackshouses. This woman should have been able to expect to make her run without having her throat slit by an assailant. Anyone who would say that she brought it upon herself by having the audacity to be out on Sheridan at 6:30 am IS blaming the victim, whether they intend to or not.
Why stop with that incident? Where I live, a woman was hit in the head by some youths on bicycles while running on the main street in my area at 4 in the afternoon one day. Is she someone to be sympathized with, while the other woman is not? Or did she bring it on herself by not running with a partner? Does she lack common sense because she chooses to get her exercise in the public thoroughfare, rather than locking herself into a private gym? Or could it be that crime happens, and a woman can get caught by it regardless of where she is or what she is doing, and where she is or what she is doing is often largely irrelevant? I myself was attacked by these same youths as I walked down a well-lit and populated street a few blocks from my home the very next night. Fortunately, they were either inept or not looking to cause serious harm, as a headache and some ringing in one ear was all that resulted from the encounter. Oh, but I can hear what some of you are thinking: why was I out on the street at 10 pm? Why didn't I call a cab or make my boyfriend walk me home? Why don't I have a car, anyway? How dare I try to walk home by myself!
Newsflash, fellas: women need to get around from place to place. Women should be able to use the public streets, in most neighborhoods and at most times, without having their presence there second-guessed if they are the victim of crime. This isn't an Islamic fundamentalist country and we don't want or need escorts to take us everywhere. Do you have any idea how difficult and impractical it is to try to live a life while never walking alone, never going out after dark, etc.? Do you think you could do it? Would you want to do it? No, and neither do we. And while the smarter ones among us take the precautions we deem necessary and weight our options and risks as we go from place to place, most of us refuse to act like second-class citizens and double-lock ourselves into our homes every night between sundown and sunup. What kind of a life is that?
Gavin de Becker makes a very truthful and telling observation in his book The Gift of Fear. According to his observation, if you ask most men when the last time is that they feared for their physical safety, they will have to think about it for a while. It may take some time before they can dredge up an incident when they felt unsafe. If you ask most women that question, the majority of responses you get will be something like "This morning. Yesterday. Last week". So don't think that when we're out and about and we get attacked that we're being ignorant or stupid. We live with a level of fear day in, day out that most of you can't comprehend. We know this world is dangerous. But we also know that isolation is not an option, so we navigate this world as best we can. And if you don't agree with our choices, that's your damn problem, not ours.
P.S. Bill the Cat is the perfect candidate since you've already got Steve Dallas and friends in office.
BB said: I agree with Paradise. I think that the Rogers Park politicos and their cronies want the area to go downhill because the worse it gets, the easier it is for their friends "the developers" to buy property cheap. That way, the politicos get the "skim" from the drug traffic as well as the payoff from the developers. When gentrification is nearly complete, they'll push the cops to make the neighborhood safe.
# posted by BB : 9:38 PM
That's absurd. Come back when you have purchased a clue.
Excellent points, Mr. Westgard. Although I still think that, other circumstances being equal, most women generally go through their day-to-day lives with a greater sense of fear of violence than most men do, it really is vitally important to consider to what extent that is the result of socialization and to what extent that reflects reality. As Paradise points out, men are much more likely to be the victims of violent crime than women. With the exception of the fear of rape, which is something that under most circumstances is not on mens' minds but that most women take into consideration on a regular basis when choosing where to go and with whom, maybe we women are simply more open to feeling fear because we are allowed to be. It makes me imagine two identical situations; one in which a woman sitting on a train is verbally harrassed by a couple of lowlifes and another in which a man is in the same situation. We'd generally expect the woman to ignore the jerks and wait for them to go away without engaging in conflict. No one would think less of her for that response. But if a man does the same thing... how many people will think he's a wimp, and less of a man? That if he's not willing to put his body on the line to defend himself that he is somehow emasculated? Blove's post expecting ridicule for expressing his fear illustrates that. It's fascinating food for thought.
As for circumcision, I've been disagreed with on this but I don't think women should make the decision to have babies circumcised since we ourselves don't have penises and have never personally faced the issue. I'd rather men didn't make that choice either, but apparently some men are delighted to be circumcised and think their sons will suffer if they're not. Maybe they're right and I'm wrong; I wouldn't know. I would support outlawing the practice on anyone too young to give their consent, period. If a grown man decides that being able to enjoy full sexual sensation is less important than looking like Joe Blow in the health club shower,let him do it. But don't make that decision for him.
And as for the draft, I was accused of being a hypocrite during Gulf War I for opposing women being drafted. But I opposed men being drafted as well. I feel that if a just war needs to be fought, enough men and women will step forward to defend their country that a draft will not be needed. Hell, if this country was under attack I would volunteer myself if I wasn't so blatantly 4F.
Well now I'm straying thoroughly off topic so I will reign it in and get some work done. But these are interesting things to think about.
Well now I see there have been a lot more posts since the one I replied to, the one from 2:45 am. Some of what you have said since then, Mr. Westgard, I do not agree with. I have a different interpretation of her remarks. LadyonFarwell may not have fully expressed what she meant to say via her choice of words, but it is clear to me that her intention was not to say that women suffer more from the effects of violence than men due to an inherent difference in our natures, or that female victims of rape suffer more from the effects of rape than male victims do. I think her point was to emphasize the particularly serious nature of rape as a crime in the community. And I think the reason she compared women being raped to men being robbed is to make the point that a person who is raped suffers more than a person who is merely robbed. Yes, her choice of genders may have implied that only women are the victims of rape. But you know what? For the type of rape we have been discussing, rape as a form of street violence, women ARE almost exclusively the victims of this crime. Forgive me if men are being accosted and sexually assaulted on the streets and and I was ignorant of that fact. But how many of us have heard of that happening? It's true it may happen and go unreported, but if it's unreported then how are we to be aware of it? As far as most of us know, it's a non-issue because we never hear about it.
Of all the forms of non-fatal violence that one is at risk of encountering on the streets of Chicago, it's hard to argue that rape isn't worse than most. Sure, some people may disagree and argue "I'd rather be raped than lose an arm", etc. But again, how many people are losing limbs on the streets of Chicago versus being sexually assaulted? Ask most people if they'd rather be the victim of a rape or a beatdown and most people will take the beating. Rape is a particularly ugly, vile crime because it is not only terrifically physically painful, it is also extremely psychologically damaging. It is a very, very difficult thing for many people to recover from, because once they are sexually traumatized it takes a lot of work to regain a healthy sense of sexuality. Most mugging or robbery victims don't find themselves having to repeatedly physically replay the events that caused them so much pain. They're not going around getting punched and kicked for fun on a regular basis so they don't need to relive the experience over and over again. But rape survivors often find when they try to reclaim their sex lives that they respond to sex as though they are being attacked again. It's part psychological, part physiological, and it's a very real response that is so hard to overcome that many survivor's relationships suffer greatly and even end as a result. Some people never, ever recover completely from the crime. It's a lot easier to heal from most fights and assaults than it is from most rapes. So most of us view rape as the more serious crime.
I'm glad this topic has segued into a discussion of male rape because it gives me the opportunity to mention a little-known group that can always use some publicity, an organization called Stop Prisoner Rape. I encountered them several years ago and was truly, sickeningly horrified by what I learned from them. I think prison rape is THE great unspoken crime of our society. Our penal system largely ignores sexual violence against prisoners and our society condones it. And God forbid if you're a gay prisoner who's raped... look at the recent case of Roderick Johnson in Texas and you'll see how difficult it is to get taken seriously. I admit I'm not going to bother getting worked up by the thought of rapists and child molesters getting a taste of their own medicine in jail, but the fact is, most men are not in prison for those crimes. And most men are vulnerable to systematic sexual abuse in prison. Yet it seems that nine times out of ten, if you hear the words "prison rape" in our culture it's the punchline to a joke. Honestly, how often do you hear people make jokes about it?!But it's not funny. There really is less support for male rape victims and much less sympathy for men who are violated in prison. And that needs to change.
Now I'm so far afield that I am going into a self-imposed 24 hour ban in reading this blog. I hope you all have reached a truce by the time I get back.
Toto sez:
I just got off the phone with our find president George W. Bush. Here's what he said: "There are evil doers in this world. Evil doers who want to hurt us. We need to hurt the evil doers with our own evil so the evil doers can't do their evil doing stuff any more." (heeeee heeee heeeee) close your eyes and picture his head bobbling, shoulder shakin' and and a sneer.)
Thanks for these words Thomas – these thoughts have definitely been missing from the discussions here. Any attempt to relativize human suffering is a very dangerous path to go down in my opinion; many of the worst conflict in the world today have their roots in this misguided human tendency.
Who really knows whether men fear less or more than women? I’m not really sure it’s a very fruitful question…Who can define the sensation of fear in relative terms? All we know is that fear, as a cultural construct, is gendered…how much does that feed people’s actual experience of fear? I think the jury is still out on that. Personally, I haven’t got a clue.
Perhaps we are confusing fear with anxiety here anyway…
One point that Tom made here that I hope isn’t buried has to do with the treatment of little boys. To what extent do we exploit the natural aggression of little boys to produce violent behavior? (and little girls too for that matter – the aggression and the violence are just expressed a bit differently) At what point does acceptable aggression shade into violence – and who gets to decide that threshold? What are the gratifications involved for us as a society? As individuals?
As for Paradise’s thought that any criminal assault can be de-sexualized…well, all crime has it’s erotic component, because all crime involves power, and so does all sexuality. Start looking at those connections, and maybe someday we’ll be able to come up with some adequate answers to blove’s question…
Oh!
I recognize this guy!
I think his name is Kenny.
I have seen him on South Park.
Don't worry; something should come along and kill him any minute.
L Boogie, your mother sounds like a kickass woman, not just for fighting back during this attack but for her work in hospice, a very challenging field. I humbly bow my head before this courageous, admirable lady and hope that she fully bounces back from this ugly incident. Thank you for sharing your story and please let your mother know she is a true heroine on many levels.
LadyonFarwell, the comments I made in my first post were directed at Jeff O and RogerParker, though now it seems pretty obvious that RogerParker was being sarcastic ("... what was she thinking going out to have a morning jog"?). I did not take offense at what you had written and regret if it appeared that I did. As has been amply demonstrated here, message boards are a very imprecise method of communication and it's not always clear who is responding to whom. Not to mention, what is one really trying to say...
Post a Comment