A 15-year-old girl was sexually assaulted on Dec 17 on her way to one of the Noble Street charter schools in Chicago, WGN-TV and the Chicago Tribune report.
On the morning of the attack, the girl had started from her home on her way to school before dawn, police said. At about 5:25 AM, her attacker hit her in the head, causing brain damage and lacerations, dragged her into a backyard, and sexually assaulted her. She was discovered, all but unconscious, about two hours later by the owner of the house.
Because of the severity of her head injuries, police were unable to talk with her and arrested nobody in connection with the incident, according to reports—until earlier this month, when DNA found at the scene led Chicago Police to Luis Pantoja, 25, who is hearing-impaired and goes by the nickname “Silent.”
He was charged with attempted murder and other crimes in connection with the sexual assault, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. The paper also reported that he had been in Cook County Jail in June.
The attack occurred about two blocks from a route that had been identified by Chicago Public Schools as a “Safe Passage” route. Guards are stationed on these routes during some hours of the day, when students are normally in transit. However, because the guards were not expected on this route until 6:45, the attacker succeeded in not being noticed or stopped.
There has been some talk about manning the Safe Passage routes earlier in the day, as many students need to start walking and taking public transportation to school in the wee hours of the morning. This is due to the distance many of them travel to attend schools that aren’t in their neighborhoods, such as selective enrollment or magnet schools.
The Safe Passage routes run through some of the most dangerous areas of the city. One worker was fired upon in October while manning a Safe Passage route at 47th and Wabash on the city’s south side, the Huffington Post reported. The 36-year-old worker was not harmed in the shooting, but incidents like the sexual assault in December and the shooting in October illustrate the dangers to kids and others, even along the so-called Safe Passage routes.
Furthermore, both the shooting and the sexual assault occurred during hours when the routes were unmanned. Here’s our plea to reconsider the hours for manning the routes, given the times kids actually hit the streets to get to their schools. Some of their commutes are more than an hour or two long. And although the streets should always be safe for kids, we think these crimes make a strong case for manning the routes earlier and later in the days.