In less than five minutes, a man brandishing a rifle hit a woman with it and tried to carjack another woman before aiming the rifle at responding Chicago police officers who arrested him Thursday morning in the Loop, police said.
“Charges are pending” for the suspect, said Officer Anthony Spicuzza, a police spokesman. No shots were fired, Spicuzza added.
The incident began at 9:46 a.m. when the suspect, described by police only as a male possibly wearing a backpack, confronted a 19-year-old woman walking on a sidewalk in the 100 block of North Wabash Avenue.
First, the gunman punched her, then he pummeled her in the head with the rifle, police said. She was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, but police did not release her condition.
At 9:48 a.m., he then walked up to the driver’s side door of a car, aimed the rifle at a 30-year-old woman, and demanded she get out and give him her valuables, police said. The woman, who was not physically injured, complied, but he didn’t take the car, he just walked away.
About one or two minutes later, as Chicago police officers were rushing to the scene, he grabbed the rifle again and began pointing it at police, police said.
Suddenly he threw the rifle to the ground and began sprinting away north toward Lake Street before police were able to place the 29-year-old man into custody, police said.
Spicuzza said he did not know if the suspect was thought to be involved in any other similar attacks.
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