Linette Kossow describes how she chased after an 18-year-old man who stole her wallet Friday. (CBS)
Reporting Pamela Jones
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CHICAGO (CBS)– A CTA passenger says she was “fed up” when she jumped off the bus and chased a man who had just taken her wallet Friday morning in downtown Chicago.
Going after a suspect is not what Linette Kossow, 50, imagined would happen when she caught the Number 36 bus.
She believes 18-year-old Jenar Sanders zeroed in on her as good prey when he spotted her pull her bus pass from her wallet. When she sat in a seat, Sanders planted himself behind her.
“What he did is, he pretended like he was going to get off at a bus stop and then forgot and said, ‘Oh, my bad. I meant the next stop,’” Kossow tells CBS 2’s Pamela Jones.
She says he went for her purse at Huron and State.
“When the bus doors opened, he reached in snatched it and ran,” Kossow says.
Even though the alleged offender is twice her size, she set her boots to the pavement, taking off after him, running down city streets and past the Omni Hotel.
“I was screaming as loud as I could, ‘Hey, stop him,” Kossow says.
Jenar Sanders (Credit: Chicago Police Department)
A security guard and a homeless man joined in the chase. At one point, the group cornered the young man and Kossow says she told him, “God wants you to give me back my wallet.”
He continued to elude them, she says. Finally, they chased the suspect into an alley where the homeless man got him to give up.
“The homeless guy said, ‘Hey, man. I’m homeless and I don’t even steal. Give that woman her wallet,’” Kossow says.
He complied. Sanders faces a felony theft charge. His new crime means he violated his bond on an old case, police said.
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