Previous victim of CTA fire attack suspect details 2021 punching attack
Previous victim of Chicago train fire attack suspect speaks out
A previous assault victim of the man accused of setting a woman on fire on a CTA train spoke exclusively with Fox 32. The young woman said she was beaten by Lawrence Reed in Chicago’s Loop back in 2021, but his case was dropped.
CHICAGO - A previous assault victim of the man accused of setting a woman on fire on a CTA train spoke exclusively with Fox 32.
The young woman said she was beaten by Lawrence Reed in Chicago’s Loop back in 2021, but his case was dropped.
She said it’s a window into a broken criminal justice system that kept Reed out on the street.
‘Clocked in the face’
The backstory:
Amy Eck was standing outside her office on LaSalle Street in December 2021 when a stranger came up and punched her in the face.
It turns out, the puncher was Reed, the CTA burning suspect, and the incident was one of his 72 known arrests.
"I was ordering DoorDash, and I was looking at my phone because my driver was kind of like driving around. I was like zooming in on my phone like ‘Where is this guy?’ The next thing I know, I just got clocked in the face," Eck told Fox 32.
Eck said she recovered from her injuries, but the incident has left her with PTSD.
"It was very shocking. The side of my face was pretty swollen, but other than that … I was fine. It was just more the shock than anything that was so horrifying," she said.
Alex Zafra witnessed the incident and said he immediately alerted police at City Hall. They chased Reed and eventually apprehended him.
"Closed fist, punched her right in the face," Zafra said. "She went down immediately like anyone else would."
Reed was charged by Chicago police with the Class A misdemeanor of battery causing bodily harm.
"The moment he turned left to go east on Washington, we both gave chase. The moment he turned left, we pounced on him," Zafra said.
At the time, Reed had already been arrested multiple times for assault on women. Fox 32 reported an incident in 2020 outside Harold Washington Library.
RELATED: Timeline: Federal charge follows years of arrests for suspect in Chicago CTA arson attack
Reed was arrested last week and faces a federal terrorism charge after allegedly dousing a woman with lighter fluid on the CTA and setting her on fire.
It came after a Cook County judge ordered Reed released on electronic monitoring for aggravated battery charges after punching a nurse in the face, despite Cook County prosecutors arguing forcefully for him to be held in jail. CWB Chicago first reported that Reed was in violation of his curfew when the burning incident took place.
‘I should’ve known'
What they're saying:
Eck said prosecutors convinced her that Reed was mentally ill and needed treatment.
She said her 2021 case was eventually dropped.
"They told me that if he promised to get treatment and to take it seriously, then would that be OK? And in hindsight, I should've said no, but you're in a courtroom, it's kind of scary, it was a lot of pressure. And I was like, OK, I thought if it was for real, and he's really going to take it seriously. I should've known what he was capable of, but you know," Eck told Fox 32.
Eck said a family member notified her that the suspect in the Loop burning attack was Reed, the same person that punched her in the face.
"I saw this article about a woman being lit on fire and I didn't really click it. I was like ‘That’s horrible' and I kinda kept moving on," she said. "Then someone brought it to my attention that it was him. It was a little triggering for me."
She added, "I don't understand how he's walking out like a free man and is able to continue to do this to people. It made me angry."
Zafra said, "We all know he's been arrested 72 times, and maybe if they would've taken this one seriously or the one before this seriously, maybe he wouldn't have set this young lady on fire last week."