Report: Robbed Pregnant Woman Finds Suspect Herself After Waiting an Hour for Chicago Police

A pregnant woman who was robbed at knifepoint waited about an hour for Chicago police to respond before she ended up finding the suspect herself, CWB Chicago reported.

Two men robbed the woman as she was about to drive away from a laundromat on 6631 South Kedzie at approximately 10:30 p.m. on Friday.

One of the two attackers allegedly reached through the driver’s side window and pointed an object at her stomach before ripping a gold necklace from her neck, according to prosecutors.

After the robbers left, she called her husband and then called the police. Prosecutors say her husband arrived in three minutes, but when a dispatcher read out her call at around 10:40 p.m., no one responded because there were not enough police in the area.

A CWB Chicago review of dispatch records shows that the call was not assigned to an officer until an hour later, at approximately 11:45 p.m.

At some point, the woman decided it would be better to file a report at a police station instead of waiting. While driving home from the station around midnight, she saw one of the two robbers in the 6300 block of South Kedzie and pulled a U-turn to alert a police squad car.

Officers caught one of the men following a foot chase. They also discovered a knife in a nearby bush.

The suspect, Kevin Hall, 25,  had served half of two three-year sentences after he was convicted of aggravated battery of a police officer. He was released from prison on parole on September 1 this year, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections.

The judge ordered Hall to pay a $20,000 bail deposit to get out of custody but is also holding him without bail until his parole status is evaluated.

Since the height of the ‘Defund the Police’ movement, which has resulted in the thinning of the Chicago Police Department, backlogged calls have become a frequent situation in the Windy City.

According to data from Wirepoints, police in Chicago were unable to respond to 406,829 high-priority emergency service calls in 2021. For comparison, in 2019 during the pre-pandemic and pre-George Floyd era there were 156,016 calls to which police could not respond.

Overall crime in the Democrat-run city has surged by 39 percent since this time last year, with robbery increasing by 17 percent and theft by 60 percent, according to police crime statistics.

You can follow Ethan Letkeman on Twitter at @EthanLetkeman.