Rapist Pushes Woman Into Moving Train

A woman hit her head on a passing Metra train and fell on the tracks as she attempted to escape a suspected rapist Thursday night at a Southeast Side Metra station.

A 32-year-old woman at the Grand Crossing Metra station told police that about 11:30 p.m. a man pushed her into a northbound train when she denied his sexual advances, according to Metra spokesman Michael Gillis.

According to a police source, the woman’s head “bounced off the train” and she then fell onto the tracks.
 
The woman was walking near the station when the suspect implied he had a weapon and told her to go to the Metra platform. When the two were on the platform, the man told the woman to perform a sexual act, and when she refused he pushed her into Metra Electric Line train No. 148 from University Park to Chicago, Gillis said.

"He went for her body," and when a struggle ensued, she was pushed back into the train, a police source said.

The woman was taken in an unknown condition to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Gillis said.

He did not know how fast the train was going, but power was never shut off because Metra trains operate with overhead cables.

It has not been determined whether any video footage captured the suspected rapist, Gillis said.

The offender is described as a light-skinned black man, 5-feet 10-inches to 6-feet tall, 200 to 220 pounds, with curly black hair and a beard, Gillis said. The man wore a tan plaid jacket and blue jeans.

Police said the suspect “wore latex gloves, a scarf around the face and a black ski mask.”

Police Cite Pattern of Sexual Assaults

This was not the first criminal sexual assault to be reported at a Southeast Side Metra station, police said.

Attacks started Nov. 26, 2008, in an area between East 63rd Street to the north, East 76th Street to the south, South Dorchester Avenue to the west and South Clyde Avenue to the east, according to community alert from Calumet Area detectives.

One of the attacks occurred at the Metra station at 63rd Street and Dorchester Avenue.

“There’s a pattern of criminal sexual assaults and robbery,” the police source said.

The attacker in the previous assaults is described as a 20 to 25-year-old black male, standing 5-foot-9 and weighing between 170 and 180 pounds. He has dark complexion, dark-colored lips and crooked teeth on the upper left side of his mouth, the alert said.

Calumet Area detectives are investigating but nobody has been charged in any of the attacks as of early Friday.

At the same time, police on the city's North Side are investigating a possible connection between two recent rapes in the Bucktown neighborhood.