CHICAGO — A day after getting out of jail for beating a woman unconscious in the Loop last year, Gary Coleman pushed a tourist off the Cermak-McCormick Place Green Line platform, seriously injuring her. Coleman received a 10-year prison sentence Thursday for the CTA attack.
Police arrested Coleman in the Loop in early October 2021 after he allegedly punched a 60-year-old woman in the face, causing her to hit her head on the sidewalk and lose consciousness. Yet he only faced a misdemeanor charge.
Coleman showed clear signs of mental illness during subsequent court hearings. He spoke loudly about nonsense and could not identify himself in court.
Two days later, Judge Gerardo sentenced Tristan Jr. Coleman given an eight-month conditional discharge for beating the woman unconscious. Then Gary Coleman walked onto the streets of Chicago with the same chronic mental health issues he walked in with.
The next evening he found himself at the Cermak Green Line station. Also on the platform were a 66-year-old tourist and her daughter, who had just picked up her race package for the 2021 Chicago Marathon at McCormick Place.
The younger woman saw Coleman walking toward her and her mother. He was talking angrily to himself, she later told police. She turned away. When she turned around, she saw her mother in the air, falling to the train tracks below after Coleman punched her in the face, officials said.
Coleman left the train station. An ambulance took the elderly woman to Northwestern Memorial Hospital with a fractured right eye socket, a dislocated wrist, a concussion and lacerations to her forehead.
Detectives distributed CTA surveillance images of the attacker to police in the city. Officers arrested Coleman when he walked into a downtown CPD station to use the phone.
On Thursday, he pleaded guilty before Judge Ursula Walowski to aggravated battery causing great bodily harm. The judge imposed a ten-year prison sentence on him, which was reduced to five years for good behavior. After receiving credit for the time he has spent in jail since his arrest, he can expect to be released in just under two years.
