An armed man got more than he bargained for in Bucktown on Saturday when the 61-year-old woman he tried to carjack fought back by jamming her fingers into his eyes and scratching his face, police said.
He gave up and sped away in the car he arrived in — only to return with some friends a few hours later to carjack a different driver in the same area.
The woman was getting into her 2019 Land Rover on the Best Buy parking lot, 2140 North Elston, when a lone carjacker got out of a burgundy-colored Jeep Cherokee and pointed a gun at her around 4:38 p.m., according to CPD spokesperson Officer Michael Carroll.
But the woman wasn’t having it.
“The female victim proceeded to jam her fingers into the offender’s eyes and scratch the offender’s face,” Carroll said. “The offender fled back into the Jeep and fled the scene.”
Then, around 7 p.m., three carjackers walked up on a man as he loaded groceries at Mariano’s, 2112 North Ashland. That’s about a block away from the earlier hijacking attempt.
All three offenders displayed handguns and took the man’s silver 2018 Audi Q5, Carroll said. Two of the men fled in the victim’s car while the third was picked up by a red Jeep Cherokee that drove from the scene.
Neither victim was injured.
The Jeep used in the first carjacking bore an expired vanity license plate assigned to a different car, according to a CPD report. In the second carjacking, police were given a partial license plate number from the Jeep that resembled the vanity plate’s digits.
Carroll said the hijackers in the second incident were Black males between 20- and 22-years-old who stood 5’10” to 6-feet tall and weighed 150-160 pounds. The three wore black hoodies and dark pants, he said.
No description was available for the carjacker who targeted the woman — although we can assume he has scratches on his face and his eyes hurt.
Detectives are investigating both cases.
