CHICAGO – A man pleaded guilty this week to randomly attacking three people with a baseball bat in Lincoln Park last year.
Julius Wilkerson, 21, pleaded guilty to three counts of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. Judge Ursula Walowski sentenced him to three years.
Officers responded to calls of a man attacking people with an orange baseball bat at Oz Park, 2021 North Burling, around 5:25 PM on October 18, 2023. They found a girl and a boy, both 17, who identified themselves as male. Don’t know. Hit them with a bat.
Prosecutors said Wilkerson stole the bat from the park and used it to hit the girl in the head, neck and shoulder. According to the charges, he punched her in the head again after she fell while trying to run away from him.
They said the boy was hit in the back, shoulder, arm and hand.
Wilkerson ran away, but stopped briefly to hit a 70-year-old man in the back of the head with the bat, the charges said. Officers arrested him nearby. They said he had in his possession a knife with a 12-inch blade.
Passersby tended to at least one of the victims until paramedics arrived. The police spokesman said all three victims were taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center with cuts and bruises.
Court records show Wilkerson has undergone several behavioral health examinations and was recently found fit to face the charges. His three-year sentence is halved for good behavior. The remaining time will be reduced by 384 days spent in custody since his arrest.
Original reporting you won’t see anywhere else, paid for by our readers. Click here to support our work.
