Woman sucker-punched in River North, warns of another random attack

CHICAGO — Evelyn O’Connor said she was sucker punched in the face Thursday by a man she didn’t know, adding that she was not the lone victim.

While O’Connor says she is recovering physically, the entire ordeal has been traumatic. 

It was around 1:45 p.m. when O’Connor says she ventured to Marshalls on her lunch break by walking across Rush Street when she noticed a man standing too still for comfort. 

As she approached the sidewalk and went to step around him, O’Connor said the man took a swing at her, completely unprovoked, causing her vision to go blurry and knock off her guard. 

“For that split second, I was able to turn my head and he punched me in the side of the face, flew into a tree, gathered myself and said a bunch of expletives and he walked off like nothing happened,” O’Connor said. “I’ve been a lifelong Chicagoan. It’s really scary to be assaulted, a victim of a crime of this caliber but I’m doing this just hoping people, like I did, file a police report.”

O’Connor said the offender then made his way across the street as if nothing had happened afterward, allegedly ripping the bags out of another woman’s hands and tossing those to the ground before shoving her. 

Bystanders aided O’Connor and waited with her after she called the police. But after 20 minutes of waiting, O’Connor decided to leave the area out of concern the man could come back. She filed a police report Friday at a nearby police station.

Though shaken up by the ordeal, O’Connor said she is thankful for friends and family who have checked in to see if she’s OK.

It’s unclear whether the other victim reported the alleged assault. Still, WGN News has reached out to the Chicago Police Department to see if there are other similar incident reports.