Editor’s note: This story was updated at 2:17 a.m. on July 27 with surveillance video of the crime.
A group of men riding Divvy bikes is suspected of carjacking an 82-year-old man in Streeterville and punching another man in his throat along the Riverwalk on Sunday morning, according to police. No one is in custody.
The carjacking victim was parked on the 200 block of East Grand when 12 to 15 men approached him on Divvy bikes around 10 a.m., according to a CPD report. One of the men opened his car door, pulled the victim from his seat, and drove away with his vehicle. The remaining offenders fled the area. Police said the victim was shaken up but not seriously injured.
Investigators found five Divvy bikes abandoned at the scene of the carjacking. Five more were ditched near the Grand Red Line station, where a group of offenders escaped on a train, according to the CPD report.
Shortly before noon, CPD license plate reading technology detected the stolen vehicle on the 3800 block of West Roosevelt in North Lawndale.
About 30 minutes before the carjacking, around 9:30 a.m., a man told police that someone in a group of Divvy bike riders punched him in the throat on the Riverwalk between Michigan Avenue and Columbus Drive. He was not seriously injured.
The primary offender in the Riverwalk attack was a Black male between 18- and 22-years-old who stands about 6-feet tall and weighs about 180 pounds. He was wearing a maroon t-shirt with shorts, and he has a goatee or mustache. Police did not provide a description of the carjacker.
Officers who monitor CPD’s surveillance camera footage watched as the group of Divvy bikers made their way from the Riverwalk to Streeterville and even saw the carjacking unfold in real-time, according to a source.
Area Three detectives are investigating.
