A pot dealer who’s on parole for carjacking, robbery, and burglary is accused of trying to rob one of his customers of $100,000 inside a Loop apartment building Thursday afternoon. As if that’s not bad enough, he wound up getting shot by his own gun.
Prosecutors said a 28-year-old woman and four friends were at her high-rise apartment in the 1000 block of South State when Fred Clarke, 28, and another woman stopped by to sell some weed around 1:45 p.m.
After making sales to three people in the apartment, Clarke pulled a gun out of his hoodie pocket and pointed it at the woman who lives there while demanding that she give him $100,000, according to prosecutors.
The woman reportedly began wrestling with Clarke to control the gun as her friends ran out of the apartment to get help. Clarke dragged the woman into her bedroom, where he hit her repeatedly while he held onto the gun and demanded money, prosecutors said.
During the struggle, Clarke’s gun reportedly fired, striking him in his left ring finger. He immediately ran from the building, prosecutors said, but police found him at his Near South Side home a short time later.
Cops summoned an ambulance for Clarke, who was treated and released by doctors at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
Prosecutors charged Clarke with attempted robbery, aggravated unlawful restraint, and possession of 100 to 500 grams of cannabis. Judge Susana Ortiz set bail at $150,000 and ordered Clarke to go onto electronic monitoring if he can post a 10% deposit bond.
But before he can do that, he’ll need to talk with the state parole board. They ordered him held while they consider sending Clarke back to prison for violating the terms of his parole.
State records show he received a 15-year sentence for carjacking in 2011. He was sentenced to concurrent 7-year terms for burglary and robbery at the same time. But, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections, Clarke got out of prison on December 2 of last year after spending 8 years, 7 months behind bars.