Woman gets 3-year sentence for random downtown attacks, including Holiday incident at Macy’s – CWB Chicago

A woman with a lengthy history of attacking people on the CTA has been given a three-year sentence for a series of attacks downtown last December — assaults she carried out less than 24 hours after leaving jail for attacking other transit riders.

Two of her latest victims were riding the Red Line. Two others were grandparents taking their grandson to a holiday lunch at the Walnut Room inside Macy’s when they were attacked on a store escalator, according to prosecutors.

Jada Beatty, 27, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to aggravated battery of a victim older than 60 and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon before Judge Ursula Walowski, who imposed three-year sentences on each count. The sentences will run concurrently, leaving Beatty with a three-year prison term. State law will reduce that term to 18 months, with a further reduction for the 310 days of credit she has earned in county jail.

Around 10:10 a.m. on December 16, a 19-year-old woman from Orlando, Florida, was riding a northbound Red Line train that stopped at the State/Lake station. Prosecutors said Beatty boarded, stopped in front of the woman, and repeatedly struck her in the head with a wine bottle before getting off and boarding a southbound train.

Beatty then walked through the southbound train and struck a 32-year-old woman in the forehead with a glass bottle, causing what prosecutors described as a large, bleeding laceration. She then fled, according to the allegations.

About 30 minutes after the train attacks, a 63-year-old Elmhurst woman, her 66-year-old husband, and their grandson arrived at Macy’s for a midday reservation at the Walnut Room. As the family rode an escalator to the sixth floor, Beatty wedged herself between the couple, prosecutors said. She struck the husband twice in the head with a wine bottle, grabbed his glasses, and threw them. When his wife tried to intervene, Beatty struck her in the face, according to prosecutors.

Chicago police officers found Beatty minutes later on the Wabash Avenue side of the Macy’s building. While being driven to the police station, Beatty volunteered a statement to an officer, saying, “I did hit that b****,” prosecutors claimed.

Beatty’s record of attacks on public transit stretches back several years.

In August 2022, she was charged with aggravated battery of a transit employee after throwing a full plastic Sprite bottle that struck a CTA bus driver in the jaw near the 3400 block of South Martin Luther King Drive. She pleaded guilty to a reduced misdemeanor battery charge the following year and received 12 months of social service supervision from Judge Michael McHale.

That supervision did not prevent another attack. On May 1, 2024, Beatty struck a 20-year-old woman in the face on a platform at the Roosevelt station, causing her to fall to the ground. Beatty was arrested at the scene and charged with aggravated battery of a transit passenger and aggravated battery in a public place.

The next day, she pleaded guilty and received a two-year sentence from McHale. With 366 days of credit for time spent on electronic monitoring and the state’s standard sentence reduction, she was released that same day. Less than 24 hours later, police say, Beatty carried out the four attacks in the Loop that led to this week’s guilty pleas.

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