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| Carjackers struck at Tortoise Club (right), then fled across the State Street bridge. | Google |
Two men are in custody after carjacking a River North valet driver at gunpoint Tuesday afternoon. Meanwhile, police continue to search for the armed teenager who carjacked a Whitney Young High School teacher at gunpoint on the West Loop campus parking lot this morning. Here’s the latest:
Police said two men approached a valet driver outside of Tortoise Club, 350 North State, shortly before 1 p.m. and ordered him at gunpoint to hand over the keys to a woman’s vehicle. The men climbed into a 2019 Jeep Grand Cherokee and sped across the State Street bridge, according to witnesses.
Moments later, the Jeep slammed into three parked cars in the 400 block of North Kingsbury, forcing the offenders to run from the scene on foot.
One man ran into the parking garage of the nearby East Bank Club where a building engineer knocked him to the ground, a witness said. According to the eyewitness, the carjacker then pulled out a handgun that another building worker knocked from his hands. More building engineers moved in and pinned the robber to the ground until cops arrived, the witness said.
The second carjacker was caught by police after a foot chase near the crash site.
Charges are pending tonight.
In the earlier incident, a Whitney Young teacher was sitting in her Nissan Rogue on the school parking lot when a teenage boy entered the passenger side of the vehicle and demanded control of the car at gunpoint around 8:10 a.m., police said.
The woman surrendered the car to the boy who sped northbound on Laflin Street, police said.
She described the offender as a black male in his early teens who was wearing a gray hoodie. The vehicle bears an Illinois license plate that beings with “BF556.”
