GRAND CROSSING — A Grand Crossing woman who was robbed at gunpoint less than a block from her home said the incident was terrifying, but left her with a new goal: to pursue a career in criminal justice.
Jada Fox, 19, had just come from Downtown where she works as a sales associate and was getting off the CTA bus at 75th Street and Michigan Avenue when she was robbed by a man who followed her off the bus.
“I’m walking, I’m about two houses from my house, and I can sense that somebody is walking behind me,” she said. “I turn around, and he’s walking toward me with a gun, and he’s like, 'don’t scream,' and by that time my feet froze, I didn’t know what to do,” Fox said.
The robbery took place at 10:20 p.m. Saturday in the 7500 block of South Michigan Avenue. Fox said she noticed that the man had gotten off the bus as well, but initially he walked in the opposite direction.
The robber was described as a 25- to 28-year-old African-American, according to Officer Thomas Sweeney, a Chicago Police Department spokesman.
Fox said she was able to get a good look at the robber, and he had a light complexion, acne and a mustache. He was wearing a black skull cap, dirty blue, white and black Nike Air Max shoes, black pants and a black puffy North Face jacket.
“On his left shoulder, it looked like a dog had been chewing on it because the cotton was coming out,” Fox said of the robber's jacket.
She said she was always aware of her surroundings, and her routine when coming home late was to call her mother, who watches her as she’s walking from the bus stop. That night she never got the chance to call because the man snatched her phone. He also took her wallet, ID and bus card, she said.
After robbing her, the man made her walk past her house with the gun still pointed at her. Fox said she was relieved that her mother, Toinett Cannon, didn’t see them walking by.
“I was like, 'Please Lord, do not let my mama come out of this house.' She would have screamed 'What are you doing with my baby?' and he would have shot both of us, and then we’d be dead, innocent people — dead,” Fox said.
Fox said she hadn't taken the bus since the robbery; her mother has been picking her up from work. The young woman said before Saturday she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do as a career, but now she believes that criminal justice is her calling.
Cannon said she won’t rest until justice is served, and to make that happen she is working with police and the CTA in hopes that the robber will be found.
“We’re trying to do everything we can to put more information on him out there so he can be caught,” she said. “People need to be aware of this person out here robbing because I’m sure she’s not the first [victim] and won’t be the last. This is what he does — he’s a stickup man, and a stickup man needs to be removed."
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