Another CTA Story

Well, it's not nearly as ugly as the story about the baby ending up on the train tracks, but I had another unfortunate encounter on the CTA Sunday night:

A man was robbed of his iPhone at gunpoint while on a CTA Red Line train late Sunday night in the Uptown neighborhood on the North Side.

The incident happened at 10:50 p.m. when the 47-year-old computer technician was on a southbound Red Line train that was stopped at the Wilson station, on the 4620 block of North Broadway, according to Town Hall District police.

A man in his late teens dressed in dark clothing got on the train, pointed a gray pistol at the man who had the iPhone in his hand and said, “Give me the phone or I’ll shoot you,’’ according to police.

The victim complied and the suspect ran off the train before it started moving again. No one was hurt and the weapon was not fired, according to police who said the victim stayed on the train until the next stop when he exited the train with witnesses and reported the incident to officers.

Folks on the train agreed that the gun was fake.  Still, it's better to hand over an IPhone rather than gamble on a confrontation.  Sad to see a young man risk an armed robbery conviction for this.

The CTA engineer responded appropriately and the Chicago police were reasonably quick on the scene.  I spoke with a detective this morning and gave him the phone's serial number.  It was a work phone, replaced within hours Monday morning and I re-synced almost everything later that evening.  However, I lost some irreplaceable photos I'd taken earlier that day.

I wasn't really scared until my friends-- in town from Texas-- stood up and yelled at the robber.  Not exactly the best thing to show visitors about Chicago, either. 

Comments

[Brenda]

Wow, you have had some bad public transportation luck lately!

[J]

Sorry to hear about this... it must have been a shock.

[Eric]

Yikes, glad you're OK! Speaking from experience (at least I was only strong-armed), iPhones are still just a bit too valuable to be safe carrying around and using on the CTA.

[withrow]

I feel the iPhone is too valuable NOT to use on the CTA. Sometimes, I keep up with work stuff but more often with friends, even on Facebook. At that moment, I wasn't as aware of my surroundings as I usually am, so I need to be a little more vigilant, but I'm not going to change my habits.

I feel sorry that my friends had to go thru this. But the truth is that after talking to the cops for an hour, we got home about 1am and I slept like a baby until 7 the next morning.

The big loss here is that the phone held a couple irreplaceable photos.

[Katie]

The Police just arrested a man they believe responsible for a string of CTA robberies -- is that your villain? And if not, did they ever catch the guy who robbed you? I live in Uptown -- if they guy is still loose, I'd love a description of him.