News reports of multiple BB attacks the weekend before last spurred another BB gun victim to report the incident to the police last week. Kate Fitzgerald said she was riding her bike from the Berwyn nightclub her family owns to a friend’s house just after 8 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 9, when a dark colored compact car pulled up behind her and matched her speed. Fitzgerald then heard a series of pops and felt several stings on her back and arm.
“It was just ‘Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!,'” said Fitzgerald, who said the shots sounded like cracker balls you throw at the sidewalk. While not injured, she said the projectiles really stung.
“I’ll tell you, it hurt,” she said, adding that she was more surprised and adrenalized by the attack than scared. “I couldn’t believe it. I thought, ‘I gotta get out of here,'” she said.
As it turned out, it was her assailants that left quickly, taking off west bound on Harrison.
Fitzgerald didn’t think to report the attack until Wednesday after reading reports of some 20 BB gun attacks on people and cars in local newspapers, as well as hearing about several personally from a friend.
Fitzgerald was the third person to report being struck by BBs that weekend. Three Oak Park men, Brian C. Maxwell, 19, of 508 S. Cuyler; Randy C. Welch, 19, of 26 Madison; and Alexander Perez-Felix of 1142 S. Maple have been charged with multiple counts of criminal damage to property, though police say they have been unable to connect the three to the assaults on Fitzgerald or the others. The three young men were allegedly riding in a (compact) dark blue Toyota along with two juvenile males the night they were arrested..
Meanwhile, three more vehicles were vandalized in River Forest between Oct. 13 and Oct. 16, two in the 7900 block of Greenfield, and one in the 600 block of Park Ave.
?#34; Bill Dwyer
