Two men who allegedly tried to steal vehicles from a rental car agency’s garage at Midway Airport this week have a true passion for automobiles. One of them has been adjudicated delinquent as a juvenile four times in the past 18 months for carjackings, prosecutors said. The other is awaiting sentencing for a juvenile carjacking case.
On Tuesday, Chicago police responded to calls of cars being stolen from the Hertz facility at Midway and met with a security guard who said four people were stealing vehicles in the garage. Prosecutors said the cars’ keys were left inside the vehicles, but the thieves spent 30 minutes driving them around the garage, trying to find a way to circumvent security barriers and spike strips.
They didn’t find a way out and all four ran when the guard chased them.
Police detained three of the thieves, one of whom “later fled,” Assistant State’s Attorney Sean Kelly said, without further explaining how the third suspect escaped from officers.
Prosecutors charged Amarion Pope with possessing a stolen motor vehicle. The other man, Jamari Woods, is charged with two counts of possessing a stolen motor vehicle because he tried to steal two cars, Kelly said. They are both 18-years-old.
Pope, who is on supervised release from the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice, was convicted of three carjacking cases as a juvenile last year, Kelly said. This year, Pope was convicted in juvenile court of carjacking, possessing a stolen motor vehicle, and aggravated fleeing, according to Kelly.
Woods is currently awaiting sentencing for an aggravated vehicular hijacking case in juvenile court. Kelly said Woods appeared in court for that case just six days before being arrested at Midway. He also has a juvenile adjudication for unlawful use of a weapon, Kelly said.
Judge Susana Ortiz set bail for Woods at $75,000 and for Pope at $50,000. They must post 10% of the bail amount to go home on electronic monitoring under Ortiz’s order.