BUCKTOWN — A nanny returning to a Bucktown home with a child was ambushed by two robbers who stole her purse and phone, police said.
The incident happened about 3:40 p.m. Tuesday in an alley between the 1700 blocks of North Hermitage and Wood streets, near The 606's elevated Bloomingdale Trail, according to police and Bucktown resident Nancy Valladolid.
Valladolid said she was leaving her home to meet up with her children at their soccer practice when she heard screaming.
"I ran into an alley in between Hermitage and Paulina and then saw two guys running underneath The 606 by the Walsh Apartments," said Valladolid, referring to an apartment complex at 1734 N. Paulina St.
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Valladolid said the two people who were running away were dressed in black and she could only see their backs. They were wearing black hoodies.
Then Valladolid said she saw the woman and a man in a neighboring alley, and the woman was so shaky, she could barely hold a phone to talk to police. Valladolid said there was blood on the woman's lips.
Valladoid, through talking with the woman — a nanny — and the man, whom Valladoid thinks was the nanny's employer, heard that the attackers had thrown the nanny to the ground and put their arms around her neck. They were struggling to take her belongings as the child was sitting in a stroller.
The nanny had been going into a home through a side entrance in the alley at the time of the attack Villadolid said.
"I felt mad and angry and frustrated because there was a child there, and they didn't care. This is so much more than taking a purse when you are traumatizing a lady and a child. It makes me so mad that people can be so heartless," Valladoid said.
The nanny could not immediately be reached for comment.
A person who wrote on Neighborhood Square said the victim was their nanny and that the child in the stroller was "a 15-month old, little boy who was so scared for his nanny."
"They did not take her coat. I'm very grateful my son was not hurt and that our nanny is Ok, but extremely pissed at the men who are now stealing from nannies who have innocent children with them. How low do we have to go as a society," the nanny's employer said.
Officer Kevin Quaid, a Chicago Police spokesman, confirmed the incident. Quaid said the report did not have any details about the woman's coat being stolen or being thrown to the ground, as was initially reported by a witness, but said that it is possible there was a struggle that the report does not reflect.
Quaid said that a woman age 54, was walking northbound through an alley with a child when two robbers appeared.
"One grabbed her from behind and pulled her purse off of her. And [the other] took her cellphone" before they both ran off eastbound, Quaid said.
Since she had seen the men believed to be the attackers, Valladolid spoke with police over the phone about what she witnessed.
"After I got off the phone, I gave [the victim] a big hug," Valladolid said.
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