CPD: Man tried to sexually abuse 6-year-old girl in Logan Square

FOX 32 NEWS - A community alert has been issued in the Logan Square neighborhood after a man tried to sexually assault a 6-year-old girl, according to police.

The little girl's grandmother told FOX 32 News she was in the Park Side Food and Liquor store on Saturday night with her granddaughter by her side. That’s when she said a man in a ball cap approached the girl. He then allegedly kissed her on the cheek.

“I see this bad guy, he grabbed the hand of my little girl and put it in his pocket,” the grandmother said.

She and a store employee tried to keep the man in the store as they called Chicago Police.

"I tell this guy you can't do this in my store,” said store employee Bharat Patel. “ Any customer, you can't touch my customers, anybody. No kid or no mom."

The grandmother confronted the man as the pair tried to keep him in the store until officers arrived. They argued over what happened, as he kept saying he didn’t do anything. The grandmother disagreed.

The argument continued for several minutes, and then the man made a run for it. The grandmother held onto him as she tried to pull him back into the store.

The scuffle continued outside, until he turned and hit her before running off.

The young girl in all of this is doing as well as can be expected, said her grandmother.

“She’s nervous, keeps looking around when we walk nearby after this happened,” she said. “It scares me.”

Chicago Police are warning nearby residents that this man is in the area around West Diversey near Harding in the Logan Square neighborhood.

Patel is grateful the store has so many cameras to capture images of the man, but he wishes police would have responded faster that night.               

"That's the main problem,” Patel added. “The police come in time maybe after like 5 or 10 minutes they could catch this guy right away."

The suspect, who has a Spanish accent, is described as a white Hispanic man, thought to be between 40 and 50 years old, standing between 5-foot-4 and 5-foot-7, with an olive complexion, a medium build, black, medium-length hair, brown eyes and a thin mustache, police said. He was wearing a black baseball hat, black jacket, white, long-sleeved sweatshirt, green-colored camouflage pants and black boots.

Anyone with information on the attempted aggravated criminal sexual abuse is asked to contact the Special Investigations Unit at (312) 492-3810.