Man says he was kidnapped, beaten, robbed in Wicker Park

CHICAGO (WLS) -- A local real estate agent said he was pulled from the streets in one of Chicago's trendiest neighborhoods, beaten and robbed.

Dan Lipton said he left a bar at about midnight on Jan. 8, put some friends in a cab and was searching for a lighter in a pocket when the attack happened.

He still has only about 60 percent vision in his left. Three weeks ago he was left bloody, beaten and half-blind on a frigid Chicago street.

"I think I was hit about 30 times in the head," he said.

As he stood on a busy sidewalk along West Division just after midnight on a Sunday morning, police said a man approached him.

"Next thing I knew the door popped open and he shoved me in the car and the door slammed," Lipton said.

The next few hours, he said, were physically excruciating.

"I was beaten in the head and restrained and taken from ATM and gas station to gas station. They were smoking crack and starting to run out of it and freaking out. I thought they were going to hit me in the head with a hammer and end it all right there," he said.

Three to four hours later, Lipton said they just dropped him off in a literal blur.

"I couldn't see any street signs, my eyes were all fogged over," Lipton explained.

All of this, he said, may never have happened if officers better patrolled the popular Wicker Park entertainment district where he said the criminal kidnapped him.

Lipton called police who drove him home and then came back to take report several hours later. Police are searching for surveillance video to get a better idea of who the suspects may be, and Lipton is asking residents of the neighborhood to call their alderman and ask for more police patrols.