Middle school sisters robbed at gunpoint in West Humboldt Park

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Two sisters, ages 13 and 14, were robbed at gunpoint early Thursday on their way to school in West Humboldt Park on the city's West Side.

Their mother, Sevena Haynes, said she usually walks her daughters to school, but she was running late so the girls were by themselves.

Thursday evening, they were still shaken.

"I just want to go to sleep and think this never happened because it's terrible," said the 13-year-old, who did not want to be identified.

The incident happened shortly after 8 a.m. in the 4200-block of West Division Street, just steps from a church and not far from a police camera. As the girls headed to the bus stop, a man walked past them and then turned around and approached them from behind. He put a gun into the side of the 13-year-old.

"I saw something poking me. I saw the gun, and I was scared. And that's when I started shaking and crying," the 13-year-old sister said.

Frightened, the older sister started to run, but she says the man then pointed the gun at her sister's head and said: "If you run, I'm going to shoot your sister."

She came back and gave him her cell phone.
"I was crying, and I just thought he was going to kill me," the 13-year-old said. "I couldn't stop shaking until the police came."

The man then ran away with the girls' cell phones.
Haynes said she wants to warn other parents.

"He's not done," she said. "If they don't catch this guy, he's going to get somebody else's kids. And maybe they're not going to be as lucky as my kids was."

The girls' description of the suspect is somewhat vague, but they say he was in his late teens to early 20s. The man was about five-foot-4-inches and wearing white Nike Air Force One gym shoes.