Young woman punched, robbed while walking to work in Mayfair neighborhood: 'You can't prepare'

CHICAGO (WLS) -- One Chicago woman is still recovering from a violent attack that police say was part of a larger string of robberies on the city's North and Northwest sides.

Kat, 22, said she was walking to work on Friday morning when she felt someone tug at her bag.

"I was in so much shock. I couldn't believe what was happening," Kat said. "As I turn around, I see a man dressed in all black, black ski mask. He walks around me, and I just feel a punch right on my cheek bone."

After she was hit, Kat said, two men stood in front of her, one acting as a look out and the other man demanding her phone.

"I just hear them saying, 'Give me your phone. Give me your phone,'" Kat said. "These guys are trying to unlock my phone by putting it my face, and they are asking me for my passcode, and I was just wailing, and I started hyperventilating."

The attack happened in the 4700 block of Kasson Avenue in the city's Mayfair neighborhood.

Police said it was one of nine robberies that took place within two hours that morning. Another robbery with similar circumstances happened in February.

Police say in each of the incidents, the suspects pull up in a car and demand the victim's belongings by using force or by threatening the victim with a metal pipe or brass knuckles.

Kat said at least one of the men who attacked her was armed with a baton-like weapon that resembled a pipe. She suffered bruises to her face and is still recovering from the trauma from that day.

"You think to yourself, how many ways you could have prepared for this, but living through it, you can't prepare," Kat said.

Kat hopes by sharing her story, it might help others become more aware and possibly prevent this from happening to them.

Police said so far, no one is in custody.

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