Evanston Woman Will Lose Eye From Sucker Punch On CTA Red Line

CHICAGO — A 67-year-old Evanston woman needs surgery to remove an eye after she was punched by a man on a CTA Red Line train Thursday, prosecutors said. A man was arrested in the apparently random and unprovoked attack the following day and ordered held without bond Sunday after allegedly stealing a pair of shoes.

Derrick McMath, 28, of the 11000 block of South 76 Avenue in Worth, was charged with aggravated battery involving great bodily harm to someone aged 60 or older and retail theft in connection with the two incidents.

CTA surveillance video showed McMath jumping over the turnstile at the Red Line station and getting onto a northbound train, according to prosecutors. The Chicago Tribune reported McMath can be seen bending over the woman, punching her in the face and taking off running as the doors open at the Jarvis stop.

Prosecutors said the punch knocked the woman's glasses off her face and caused her to start bleeding, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. She was taken to St. Francis Hospital in Evanston, where doctors diagnosed an orbital fracture and ruptured orbital nerve. At the time of the attack, she had been reading an e-reader while riding back to Evanston from a doctor's appointment downtown, prosecutors said.

Police released still images from surveillance video Friday, calling it an "unspeakable attack" and asking for help from the public to identify the man.

That same day, McMath walked into a shoe store in the Logan Square neighborhood wearing the same clothes as the man pictured in the attack, prosecutors said. The Sun-Times reported he had tried on a pair of Sketchers worth $45 and walked out of the store in the 2100 block of N. Milwaukee Avenue without paying before he was chased down by a store staffer and arriving police.

McMath has a previous conviction in 2008 for aggravated unlawful use of a weapon involving a firearm, police said. Judge Stephanie Miller reportedly said that McMath was a danger to the community due to the nature of the unprovoked attack and the serious injuries it caused as she declined to set bail in the case. McMath is due back in court Friday.