A Chicago woman is coping with fear and anxiety after she was allegedly attacked by a group of young people near the University of Chicago campus over the weekend, WLS-TV reports.
Susan Pedersen had just finished dropping off a friend at the university around 9 p.m. Friday, with her two young children in the backseat, when, she says, a group of teens surrounded her car as she stopped at a red light.
"They were walking around both sides of the vehicle—in the front, in the back—and as they were walking across, they were hitting my car, using racial slurs and telling me that I didn't belong in their neighborhood because I was white," Pedersen said of the group, which she said consisted of black youths.
The alleged attackers began kicking and shaking the vehicle as Pedersen's two young children began screaming from the backseat.
One of the alleged attackers was on a bicycle, and the group used it to shatter the back window of her car, causing glass to fly into the car and spray all over her 3-year-old, Benjamin, who reportedly suffered cuts from the broken glass.
A nearby police car drove by and the group fled, but two juveniles were arrested and charged with misdemeanor criminal damage to property. Pedersen wants more serious charges filed.
"This is something that's going to stay with me for the rest of my life," she said.
Read more at WLS-TV.