Cops warn public after unidentified man sexually abuses girl in Chicago's Austin neighborhood
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS: Chicago police are reportedly urging the public to help locate a man wanted for sexually abusing a girl on the West Side. According to police, the victim was sexually harassed while she was walking in the 1100 block of South Menard Avenue in the city's Austin neighborhood just after 5 pm on Friday, February 24.
The suspect has been described as 5'7"-5'9" medium build. Cops said he was last seen wearing a blue/black hooded jacket, black sweatpants, light-colored gym shoes, and a black ski mask, according to ABC7. Chicago Police Department urged residents to always walk or ride in pairs or groups, be aware of their surroundings, and dial 911 to report anything they find suspicious. Anyone with information on the case has been urged to call Area Four Detectives at (312) 746-8251. Additionally, Chicago Police's Twitter account has said that anonymous tips can be submitted at cpdtip.com.
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Sexual assault cases on the rise in Chicago
It was reported in January 2022 that sexual assault cases in Chicago seemed to be returning to pre-pandemic levels. As per a report in the Chicago Sun-Times, the Near North police district reached a 20-year high. As many as 77 sexual assaults were reported here in 2020, and 151 in 2021. The Near North District includes River North and parts of downtown.
Additionally, a 2021 report by WGN9 said Chicago Police Department data shows 19 of the city’s 22 police districts saw an increase in sexual assault reports from 2020 to 2021. The numbers doubled in some areas.
Back in 2020, the highest percentage change happened in the Jefferson Park neighborhood with numbers up 121 percent, followed by Shakespeare District, where the increase was 103 percent. Shakespeare District includes parts of Wicker Park, Bucktown, and Logan Square.
Stephanie Love Patterson, the executive director of the nonprofit Connections for Abused Women and their Children or CAWC, said, "We’ve seen a lot of upticks in gender-based violence throughout this entire pandemic. Sex assault is much like domestic violence (in that it) is about power and control not about clothes or drinking or who you went out with. It’s about the perpetrator wanting power and control.”
Law enforcement's response to sexual assaults in Chicago
In a 2020 report published by Madeleine Behr of the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation (CAASE), it was revealed that 80% to 90% of sexual harm reports made to CPD did not result in an arrest between 2010 and 2019. “I think oftentimes these kinds of perceptions of what rape is and what sexual harm is impacts all of us. It also impacts law enforcement, and their treatment of survivors, their understanding of survivors' experience and their willingness to sit down with a survivor and hear their story, and not immediately dismiss it out of hand,” Behr said.
“The numbers are not necessarily the whole story. If we are only focusing on law enforcement response to sexual harm, we are missing the vast majority of survivors who will never go to law enforcement,” Behr said, adding, “So we need a really crisis level trauma-informed response to survivors who do go to law enforcement. We also need to be investing in community services like rape crisis centers, therapy services, prevention initiatives.”