A 19-year-old man who has three carjacking cases pending in juvenile court ran from police who saw him walking down the street with a gun in his waistband Sunday, prosecutors said.
In an unusual move for a routine gun charge, prosecutors asked a judge to hold Raekwon Wilson without bail. And in an equally unusual move for a low-level felony, the judge granted the request.
A February 25, 2021, Chicago Police Department press release announced that officers arrested an unnamed 17-year-old male in connection with three vehicular hijackings. The dates of those crimes align with details provided by a prosecutor during Wilson’s bail hearing Monday:
- Three male carjackers physically attacked and carjacked a 32-year-old man on the 1500 block of South Sawyer at 9 p.m. on September 1, 2020.
- Two hijackers displayed a gun and took a Lyft driver’s car on the 1400 block of South Christiana at 1:45 p.m. on November 19, 2020.
- Two men displayed a gun while robbing and carjacking an Uber driver who picked them up on the 1400 block of South Spaulding at 9:43 p.m. on December 30, 2020
Prosecutors charged Wilson with two counts of aggravated vehicular hijacking and one count of vehicular hijacking in connection with those crimes last year. The cases are still pending in juvenile court.
On Sunday, Wilson ran away from cops who stepped out of a patrol car to investigate the gun they allegedly saw sticking out of his waistband, according to prosecutors.
The officers chased him to the third floor of an exterior porch on the 1500 block of South Sawyer. There, they allegedly saw Wilson with a gun in his hand. He threw it from the porch into a neighboring yard, according to prosecutors. The police arrested him and retrieved a loaded gun from the yard.
Prosecutors charged him with aggravated unlawful use of a weapon.
Assistant Public Defender Suzin Farber argued against the state’s no-bail request by pointing out that Wilson has never been convicted of any crime. She said he is the father of a 6-month-old child.
Judge Barbara Dawkins agreed that the state presented “a rather extraordinary request” when it asked her to hold Wilson without bail given his lack of convictions and the relatively low-level felony gun charge he now faces.
After walking through the state’s legal requirements for no-bail holds, Dawkins concluded, “I do believe in this case it is warranted.”
Besides the pending carjacking cases, Wilson also has active arrest warrants in Wisconsin for cannabis and narcotics, prosecutors said.