EDGEWATER — Four years to the day after surviving a brutal attack in a Lincoln Square alley, an Edgewater woman out for her daily run said she was forcibly "kissed" on the cheek by a man who she later learned — after chasing him for several blocks — is accused of assaulting other women in the neighborhood.
The woman said around 5:15 p.m. Wednesday she was nearing the tail end of her run on West Devon Avenue, passing a group of people including cyclists, kids playing on the sidewalk and others waiting for the bus.
As she passed, she said a man standing among the others moved his head far enough that he could forcibly press his lips against her face as she ran by.
As adrenaline and shock coursed through her body, she decided to chase him several blocks around the corner onto North Broadway — calling out to neighbors as she pursued him.
It was a decision she made only because there were plenty of witnesses and it was still light out, she said.
"It boils down to really bad street harassment, and no one really sticks up for themselves, or can stick up for themselves," she said. "I guess I was just at a point where I was thinking, what's he gonna do? What's the harm in just chasing him down? I just ran 10 miles anyway, I may as well keep going."
Linze Rice says other women came forward with similar stories:
Eventually, he gave up fleeing, she said, and the pair stood face-to-face as confused onlookers watched.
The woman quickly realized she hadn't thought of a plan for what to do once she caught up with him.
"All he said was, 'You're a good runner,'" the woman said. "If it wasn't the middle of the day, there's no way in hell I would chase after that guy."
Believing that the police "already had enough to deal with," she said she didn't initially file a police report, but took a picture of the man's face instead.
On Thursday afternoon, she filed a report with police.
Officer Thomas Sweeney, a Chicago Police spokesman, confirmed a report was filed, in which a woman said a man in the 6300 block of North Broadway attempted to "grab her while kissing her on the cheek."
As she retraced her steps where she'd shouted for help, she said two other women came forward and said they were familiar with the man because he had made unwanted contact with them as well.
One woman who works in the 6400 block of North Sheridan Road said she often has to walk down the street to Aldi on North Broadway to assist some of her elderly clients with buying groceries. One day last week, she said the man walked up to her and said, "Give me some money." She told him no and walked away. The next day, she was on the phone when the same man tugged on her purse strap, she said.
"He tried to grab my purse, and I just pushed him and hit him — and he was just smiling," she said. "I think he got an issue, this man. I told him to get the f--- away from me."
She said she didn't file a police report at the time, but after seeing the other woman chase the same man down, she's now considering it.
In the meantime, she said she fears for her elderly clients who may not be able to fight off an attacker the same way she did.
According to Stop Street Harassment, an organization aimed at documenting and studying harassment in public, a 2014 national survey found that at least 65 percent of women participants said they had experienced street harassment on some level in their lifetime.
Among the same women, 23 percent reported being touched sexually, 20 percent said they had been followed and 9 percent said they had been forced to do something sexual as a result of street harassment.
Seventy-seven percent of women who said they'd experienced street harassment said they'd been the target of "kissing noises," and 57 percent said they'd been "touched or grabbed in a sexual way" by a stranger in public.
As for the woman who was kissed, she said the whole incident came exactly four years after she'd escaped a violent attack in Lincoln Square, where she was dragged by two men into an alley before being hit over the head with a blunt object from behind. The attackers ran away with her purse and wallet, causing an ongoing identity theft investigation to unfold, she said.
"It was just really weird timing because I'm from Chicago and when that happened, it was the first time I'd ever had a bad incident," she said. "Now my fiancé knows not to sneak up behind me."
Still, the woman says she's not going to let the man take away her daily lakefront run. She plans to put fliers around the neighborhood with the man's face.
Both women said that by sharing their stories, they hope that other people in the neighborhood who may have had problems with the man will come forward and report their stories to the police. They also said their bottom line was that they didn't want this to happen to someone else.
"I want people to know what he did," she said. "I want people to say, 'Oh my God, this guy is harassing women and that's not OK.' I wish more people could stand up for themselves because a lot of this stuff, you get scared. I don't know what this person is capable of."
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