Everyone is somewhat familiar with the use and necessity of public transportation. Not everyone can afford the expense of owning a car: the gas, maintenance, insurance, and monthly loan payment. People still need a means of getting to the grocery and work. In most areas that includes buses and ferries. In metropolises like New York City or Washington D.C., another option for public conveyance is the subway . It is considered an economical way to transport large numbers of people across a specified route, in scheduled intervals, using rapid trains that circulate above, alongside, or below the city on tracks.
You hope when boarding, the worst thing to happen will be you won’t get a seat. You pray the train cars won’t be crammed full of people, some eager to crush up against you for the duration of the ride. You hope the amalgamated smell of bodily fluids and heavy handed perfume will be minimal. In the case of one passenger, riding on the Chicago Transit Authority’s Blue Line of the Chicago L, her experience far exceeded the worst of plausible expectations.
NBC Chicago reported how the victim, who requested her identity not be revealed, was assaulted with a sock full of feces while on an east-bound line.
The young college student described to police, “He had a sock full of his poop on me. It was everywhere; on my face, my hair, my clothes.” She made an attempt to pursue her attacker, but he escaped. “It was like the biggest degradation I’ve ever experienced. I wish he had just hit me,” she said.
The victim was pelted with pooh without provocation, as neither had ever engaged with the other before the incident. The assailant was recorded leaving the scene by CTA security cameras. CBS Chicago details her attacker as a mid-20’s, black male, with an average build, facial hair, hooded sweatshirt, and ball cap. The investigating officers do have a person of interest. He resembles the description witnesses and the victim provided, as well as stills from the security footage.