Police said the two sisters were charged Tuesday with attempted first-degree murder, assaulting a security guard 27 times when he told women to wear masks and use store-provided hand sanitizers.
Jessica Hill, 21, and her sister, Jayala, initially had a verbal altercation with a guard at a shoe store in Chicago, after which they refused to wear a mask, a Chicago Police Department spokeswoman told NBC News. The incident on Sunday afternoon became physical when one of the sisters allegedly stabbed and attacked the guard several times in the back, neck and hands, police said.
The 32-year-old victim was admitted to Mount Sinai Hospital in critical condition, while the sisters were arrested and treated at a nearby hospital for minor injuries, Chicago police said.
According to police, the two women were in good health and were later held in the Cook County Jail.
During Bond’s hearing Tuesday, Cook County Judge Mary Marubio’s Circuit Court charged the women with first-degree attempted murder and ordered their arrest without a bond, prosecutors said.
The sisters’ court-appointed attorney could not be reached for immediate comment, but the Chicago Tribune reported that defense attorneys argued they were working in self-defense and had bipolar disorder.
The defense attorney added that the pair did not intend to commit the crime because they did not have a criminal record, but the judge said the “sharp number” of knife wounds was related, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
The Chicago stabbing is the latest in a list of violent mask controversies occurring across the country. In September, near Buffalo, New York, an 80-year-old man died of “shock from a faint force on his head” when he asked a man to wear a mask over a bar, which later moved him to the ground. . Police initially said that in early May, two men broke the hand of a security guard at a target in Los Angeles when they refused to wear a face mask inside the store.
Marubio said the incident was “horrific” according to the Sun-Times.
“That’s the complete mess of this,” Marubio said. “It simply came to our notice then. I can’t do fashion situations that protect the community. “
The sisters are expected to return to court on November 4, prosecutors said.
