Yara Afaneh was scrolling through her phone on the platform at the Loyola CTA Red Line station Tuesday afternoon when a man approached and said “excuse me miss.”
Afaneh, 23, didn’t look up, but when she noticed he wasn’t wearing shoes she said she got a bad feeling and started walking away. That was when she said the encounter allegedly turned violent.
“Out of nowhere he just punched me in the back of the head,” Afaneh told the Tribune Wednesday. “I still have a headache right now.”
A police spokesperson said the man — later identified as Derek Rucker, 37, of Blue Island — struck Afaneh with a closed fist. He was arrested Tuesday about 1:15 p.m. in the 1200 block of West Loyola Avenue and charged with two misdemeanor counts of battery, police said.
He is at least the second man in recent months to have been accused of randomly punching people in Chicago. Numerous people claim to have been victims of a “Loop puncher” in posts across social media, including Instagram, Reddit and TikTok, though it’s unclear how many perpetrators there are.
The video Afaneh posted on TikTok of the arrest of Rucker was viewed hundreds of thousands of times. Afaneh said she heard about similar assaults on social media, but didn’t expect it to happen to her.
“But once (the attack) happened, I guessed it was definitely (the Loop puncher),” she said.
Last month, CBS Chicago shared a story about two women who, in separate instances, had been allegedly punched by William Livingston in Lincoln Park and the Loop. Livingston was ordered held in Cook County Jail pending trial. Records show he’s pleaded not guilty to felony battery charges.
A Chicago Transit Authority spokesperson said in a statement that the “safety and security” of riders and employees is “top priority.”
“When CTA was alerted to this incident, we immediately pulled surveillance images to assist the Chicago Police Department with their investigation,” the statement said. “We also issued a bulletin to our security staff and law enforcement to be on the lookout to identify the suspected individual.”
So far this year, about 230 cases of assault or battery have been reported at CTA train platforms, according to city data. They are reported most frequently at Clark/Lake, 69th St. Red Line and 79th St. Red Line stops.
Cook County court records show Rucker has been arrested more than two dozen times in the last 20 years. Several judges have ordered mental health evaluations.
Rucker has faced charges of attacking police officers, Cook County jail personnel and hospital nurses, records show.
In 2014, he pleaded guilty to aggravated battery of a police officer and was sentenced to three years in prison. He pleaded guilty in 2023 to resisting a police officer and was sentenced to another year in prison.
Rucker pleaded guilty in 2024 to aggravated battery of a nurse, records show. In November, he was sentenced to a year of probation, but he was arrested again two weeks later after CPD officers allegedly saw him attacking a 62-year-old man in River North. Rucker was charged with battery, though the disposition of that case was not immediately clear.
The public defender’s office said it hadn’t been appointed to represent Rucker for the recent battery charges, as of Wednesday afternoon. It wasn’t clear if he had obtained another attorney. Rucker couldn’t be reached for comment.
After the punch, Afaneh said she immediately called 911, while her assailant went and sat on a nearby bench alone. She said the police showed up within about 10 minutes and arrested him. She decided not to go to the hospital, but still has a headache a day later, so that she might go for a check-up soon because she doesn’t “want to risk anything.”
Afaneh added that police later informed her that while Rucker was currently in the hospital, he would be released until his upcoming court date on Oct. 30. It was an update that Afaneh said made her “uncomfortable.”
“It kind of sucks because it’s like multiple people have said they went up to the police when he got arrested, and they told him I’ve seen him around Loyola, I’ve seen him around this neighborhood,” she said. “I stay around there, and I take the train every day to go to work, and now I just feel really uncomfortable.”
Savanna Wood, 30, also posted a now-viral TikTok video after she was allegedly punched in the face by a man at the Addison Red Line stop on Sept. 20 about 2 p.m. while on her way to Wrigleyville. Wood didn’t report the attack to the police. She said she was repeatedly disconnected when she called the non-emergency number.
When she stepped off the train and looked left to find the stairs to exit, a man punched her in the face, near her right eye. Wood’s siblings and boyfriend, who were with her, saw her fall backward and were “stunned for a moment,” she said.
Wood said she immediately left the platform because she didn’t want to provoke a further attack. The man — who was wearing a “bright yellow shirt” and “really baggy pants” and Wood described as “scruffy” and “very tall and large” — got on an incoming train. She was left with a black eye.
No one has been charged in her attack.
“It was the quickest and most subtle way of being attacked I probably could have ever dreamed of,” she said. “But it could have been significantly worse.”
While she encourages women to be alert, she wants people to understand that there’s sometimes not a lot someone can do to prevent an attack. Wood moved to Chicago a few months ago for a new job at Northwestern University.
“When you’re in crowded situations and someone’s walking toward you, it’s not even as if they’re approaching you, it’s that they’re walking past you. And that’s how easy it is for something like this to happen,” she said. “I’ve replayed this moment in my head 100 times, and there’s not a single thing I could have done to prevent it.”