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Thursday, Dec 20, 2012 5:10 PM UTC

Weird news: Man attacked woman with a sock full of poop

The female college student said, “It was everywhere; on my face, my hair, my clothes."

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Topics: Weird news of the day, poop, public transit, socks, Chicago,

Weird news: Man attacked woman with a sock full of poop (Credit: kocetoiliev/Shutterstock)

As if women don’t already have enough reasons to avoid public transit, they might have one more: Being attacked by a “sock full of poop,” as one Chicago woman reportedly was last week.

According to the 21-year-old college student, a man on the Chicago Transit Authority’s Blue Line boarded the train at the Oak Park stop, and then at the next stop, without warning or provocation, “he throws something in my face.”

That “something” turned out to be feces. “He had a sock full of his poop on me,” she said. “It was everywhere; on my face, my hair, my clothes.”

The attacker then fled up the Austin Boulevard exit; she wasn’t able to catch him. “The worst part is nobody had anything to wipe my face with,” she said. The woman waiting for paramedics to show up, who gave her towels and water. “They really aren’t prepared for a situation like that,” she noted.

She described the experience as degrading, saying “I wish he had just hit me.” “I don’t know why he did it,”  she added, guessing that he wouldn’t have done such a disgusting thing to a man.

Unfortunately, the attacker, whom the woman described as a young black man with facial hair and of average built, is still at-large. “We have photos of the offender and we’re seeking to identify him,” said Oak Park Police Commander Ladon Reynolds. “We’ve reached out to other [police] agencies and have issued a bulletin.”

As for the woman–who wishes to remain anonymous–she says she’ll still brave public transit. “I just want people to pay attention on the train,” she said. “I try to check the people around me.”

h/t Huffington Post

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Prachi Gupta is an Assistant News Editor for Salon, focusing on pop culture. Follow her on Twitter at @prachigu or email her at pgupta@salon.com. More Prachi Gupta.

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