A 27-year-old woman said she was returning home with her mother Saturday night on the Red Line after a dim sum dinner when a group of girls got on the train at the Monroe station and appeared to want to pick a fight.
"This girl started blowing smoke in my face, and she flicked her cigarette ashes at me,'' said the woman, who asked not to be identified. "I said: 'You need to put that out,' and the next thing I know there's all these girls that jumped on top of us.''
They began punching her face and then went for her hair. She believes their attackers had knives or box cutters and padlocks possibly placed inside socks.
"I put my head down between my legs so they would stop beating me in the face, but they were trying to pull my face up and hit me more,'' she said. "They ripped out chunks of my hair, and I've got a black eye and bruises on my face, and all over my back and shoulder.''
The 11 teenagers arrested in that incident at the CTA's State/Lake station in the Loop about 6:35 p.m. were among a total of 28 people arrested downtown Saturday night for disturbances that ranged from bumping into passers-by on sidewalks to the attack on the CTA train, authorities said.
The victim on the "L" said she believed the women were targeting her but at one point, her mother intervened to help her. As the train stopped at the Lake station, the group grabbed her purse, ran off and jumped the turnstile, she said. The woman ran after them , though, and eventually got her purse back and went to the police station to press charges.
The sole adult arrested in the CTA attack, Stephanie Hosch, 18, of 1300 block of North Central Avenue, was charged with two counts of misdemeanor battery, police Officer Veejay Zala said.
The victim said the entire incident happened between two stations, while the train was moving. "There was nobody to help. There was no time, really. We were surrounded it happened in one stop, and then they got off the next stop, at Lake,'' she said.
The woman, who moved to Chicago from Nashville, Tenn., about four years ago, works at a restaurant and said she rides the "L" all the time. But nothing like this has ever happened, she said.
"I have never been afraid," the woman said.
The two victims were bruised during the attack but were in good condition and declined medical treatment, authorities said.
Ten juveniles were charged with battery and two of those juveniles were also charged with strong-arm robbery, police Officer Veejay Zala said.
The 11 teens told police they had agreed on Twitter to meet downtown. It appeared that several of those arrested had not met before Saturday, authorities said.
In a separate incident, 17 people were charged with misdemeanor reckless conduct after they allegedly bumped into other people on the sidewalks, blocked sidewalks and traffic on the street and started fights among themselves on the Magnificent Mile near North Michigan Avenue and East Huron Street between 7 and 7:40 p.m. Saturday, authorities said. No injuries were reported.
All but two of the 17 charged are younger than 18. The two adults are Bobby K. Rhodes, 19, of the 1100 block of North Cambridge Avenue, and Marquell Hicks, 18, of the 3200 block of West Diversey Avenue, police said.
