Man punches nurse on CTA bus after saying, ‘Did you just cough on me?’: police

A man on probation for beating a veteran allegedly attacked a nurse earlier this month on a CTA bus after claiming she coughed on him.

Quindrell Yarbrough, 29, was standing near the center door of a bus in the Loop on April 1 when the nurse sitting in an adjacent seat, and who just finished her shift at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, raised her arm and coughed into her elbow, Cook County prosecutors said, citing surveillance video from the bus.

Yarbrough turned and said, “Did you just cough on me?” but the nurse denied that she had, Chicago police said. The video clearly showed the woman raised her arm and coughed into the crook of her arm, Assistant State’s Attorney James Murphy said at a bond hearing Friday.

Chicago police

As the southbound bus slowed to a stop on Michigan Avenue at Monroe, Yarbrough cocked back his arm and punched the woman in the face, then hopped off the bus and ran off, Murphy said.

Yarbrough was identified by the alleged victim, and police arrested him at his home in Bronzeville Thursday, Murphy said. Judge Wesley Willis ordered him held on $50,000 bail for aggravated battery.

The nurse, a 31-year-old woman, declined medical treatment at the scene.

At the time of his arrest, Yarbrough was on probation after pleading guilty to aggravated battery charges for beating a 75-year-old diabetic veteran unconscious, because he thought the man had cut in front of him in line at a Walgreen’s, prosecutors said. The man had actually just set down a box of nutritional shakes on the counter while waiting as Yarbrough and a friend quarreled with the cashier, Murphy said.

Yarbrough punched the man in the face, and he and his friend punched and kicked the older man on the ground, leaving him with fractured bones in his face.

Contributing: Andy Grimm

Read more on crime, and track the city’s homicides.