CHICAGO — Police are seeking help to find a couple they say beat 19-year-old DePaul student Jessica Hughes on the Blue Line on Thursday.
Police released images of the couple, a man and a woman, on Saturday. At 10:50 a.m. Thursday, the couple walked up to the victim, tried to take her phone and punched her, according to a Chicago Police alert.
On Friday, Richard Amador, the father of the victim, said his daughter was beaten by the couple as they tried to get her iPhone. Three witnesses just watched and did nothing to help, he said.
Hughes was riding the Blue Line home with a crowd of other DePaul students, but they cleared out after a few stops and Hughes was on the train with a man and woman and three or four other people, Amador said.
Near the Kedzie stop, the man with the woman stood up and told Hughes, "Give me the iPhone," Amador said.
The man jumped on Hughes before she could respond, "pummeling her, beating her down," Amador said. The man and woman beat Hughes' face and he bit her hand. The woman punched Hughes' nose, breaking it.
Photos of the suspects:
[Images courtesy Chicago Police Department]
The other people on the train just watched the attack, Amador said.
"She was screaming for help, and nobody on the train would help her," Amador said.
The couple ran away after the attack — without Hughes' iPhone — and the witnesses on the train got out of the car, Amador said.
Hughes was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, said Officer Jose Estrada, a Chicago Police Department spokesman.
Hughes is now back at home recuperating, but she was shaken up by the attack, her father said.
"She's emotionally traumatized," Amador said.
The attackers are described as a 25- to 35-year-old black man who was 6 feet tall and weighed 180 pounds, police said. He had black hair and wore a gray hooded sweatshirt. The woman was black, 25- to 35-years old, 5-foot-6 and weighed 120 pounds, police said. She wore a dark-colored "Aeropostale" sweatshirt and black pants.
Anyone with information about the incident or the couple is asked to call police at 312-744-8263.
DePaul declined to comment Friday. The Chicago Transit Authority is cooperating with police, said spokeswoman Catherine Hosinski on Friday.
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