CHICAGO (WLS) — Leah Hope, known to ABC7 viewers as a tenacious and insightful reporter, has spent years delivering stories from challenging locations.
This Monday evening, however, she found herself in a very different scenario, participating in a deeply personal interview.
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“All I could think of was, ‘Is this it? Is this it?’ Then, my thoughts turned to my daughter and my family,” Leah shared.
For thirty years, Leah has been a familiar presence at ABC7, telling the stories of others.
“Being on this side of the story is incredibly surreal. It’s hard to believe it actually happened,” Leah reflected.
On January 2, just before 1 p.m., Leah was wrapping up a report on the upcoming closure of the State and Lake elevated train station. Her car was parked on State Street, and as she got in to move to her next assignment, an unexpected event unfolded.
“Got in the car, put my seatbelt on, went to put it in drive, and he was there,” Leah said.
He, police say, was 43-year-old Noah Johnson.
“At first, he was trying to pull me out, but I had this big parka on, and so he’s pulling me and hitting me,” Leah said. “And I was just at a great disadvantage, and so I was honking the horn and screaming, and I just was fighting. I was fighting for my life.”
Leah continued, “But the worst part was as I was screaming, he grabbed my lower jaw, and then he was pulling me out of the car by my lower jaw, and that ripped my tongue from the bottom of my mouth, tore the ligaments from my jaw.”
It was at that moment that others rushed to help.
“Four guys pulled him off of me. He kept charging at me. They kept pulling him off of me, and they shut my door,” Leah said. “These four guys who I didn’t know, my angels, my angels.”
Leah continued, “One of them had him pinned on the street. There was a woman at the bus stop… She said, ‘I saw what just happened. Do you want me to just sit with you?’”
Leah’s attacker managed to break free from the men and calmly walked away, even passing ABC7’s State Street studio at State and Lake.
Days later, Johnson was arrested and charged after Leah identified him in a photo array.
“I hope that he gets the support that he needs,” Leah said.
Leah was off the air for five weeks as she healed from her injuries. She hopes her story inspires action.
“We need to do more. We need to do better for people who have fallen through the cracks, people who are unhoused, people who are unwell,” Leah said. “The consequences of people not getting the support they need, it affects us all.”
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