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Streets and San Guys Chase Alleged Groper Until Police Show Up

By Alisa Hauser | June 22, 2015 2:57pm | Updated on June 22, 2015 3:33pm
 Two Streets and Sanitation workers corner Luis Madrigal, who allegedly groped a woman on Sunday.
Two Streets and Sanitation workers corner Luis Madrigal, who allegedly groped a woman on Sunday.
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Kara Bee/Ukrainian Village Neighborhood Watch

WICKER PARK — A woman is crediting two city Department of Streets and Sanitation workers for cornering a man she says groped her on a Wicker Park side street.

Around 1 p.m. Sunday,  a West Town resident who asked to be called Emily B. had just gone shopping with her boyfriend at the new Wixter Market, 2110 W. Division St.

"I wanted to keep walking; my boyfriend went back to the house with the frozen fish. I turned the corner at Hoyne and Division, next to Folkore and was messing around with my earbuds and felt a man watching me. He said, 'Are you trying to get into the shade? The shade is nice,'" Emily B. said.

She said she muttered something in acknowledgement and continued to walk.

"I felt his hand under my skirt and said, 'What the f--- are you doing?' and ran after him screaming police, police!'" the victim said.

At the same time she was running after the man, two workers from Streets and Sanitation were driving in their trucks, going east on Division Street.  The workers stopped briefly to ask what happened. 

"I said he grabbed my butt. They thought I said he grabbed my bag. The next thing I knew they were chasing him and he ended up back on the ground by Pizano's," Emily B. said.   

The man was cornered by the two workers in front of Pizano's Pizza and Pasta, at 2056 W. Division St., until police arrived.

Luis Madrigal, age 50, of the 2600 block of West Haddon Avenue, was arrested on signed complaints that he touched a 40-year-old female on the buttocks as he was walking behind victim, said Officer Jose Estrada, a Chicago Police Department spokesman.

After being chased and detained by "two good Samaritans," Madrigal was charged with one misdemeanor count of battery, said Estrada.

As a result of the alleged incident, Madrigal was fired from his job as a dishwasher at the pizza spot.

"We let him go because of what we found out," said Rudy Malnati, CEO of Pizano's, which replaced Crust in 2012.

"It was pretty brazen to do what he did across the street from his employment! I also didn't think he'd expect me to go chasing after him!" the woman said.

"I just wrote the Commissioner of Streets and Sanitation a letter; they were so awesome. I had no expectations anyone would catch him and they did," she said.

Madrigal is scheduled to appear in Cook County Court Branch 23 at 2:30 p.m. Aug. 17.

Estrada said that Sunday's incident appears to be the first time Madrigal has been arrested.

Emily B. said she plans to attend the hearing.

"If I see him again, I plan on letting others who are near me know about this guy's bad behavior. This guy shouldn't feel comfortable in the neighborhood," she said.

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