Prosecutors have charged two men with the violent armed robbery of a convenience store on Chicago’s North Side last week. The robbers’ getaway car had been hijacked just minutes earlier, but the men aren’t charged with that crime.
Just after midnight Thursday, three men wearing ski masks walked into the 7-Eleven at 2900 West Montrose, and two of them pointed handguns at the clerk, prosecutors said.
Damandre Henley, who was paroled in late August for two armed robberies, allegedly grabbed the clerk by his shirt and took him to an office where he asked for money. But prosecutors said the victim does not speak English well, and he tried to explain that there was no money in the office.
Henley tapped him on the forehead twice with a handgun, then led him to the register, prosecutors said. As Henley, 25, and Dwight Hasberry, 29, allegedly held guns to him, the clerk opened the registers.
Meanwhile, the third accomplice loaded liquor and cigarettes into the men’s bags and boxes.
Prosecutors said Henley then led the victim back to the office, where he pistol-whipped him, causing him to fall to the floor with a head wound.
All three robbers escaped in a Volkswagen that had been hijacked about 45 minutes earlier in the 1400 block of West Erie. The car’s owner, a 21-year-old man, told police that three men wearing ski masks displayed guns, ordered him out of his Volkswagen SUV, took a handgun from his pocket, and drove away with his car.
The man managed to get his young child from the car’s back seat before the robbers drove away.
Cops tracked the hijacked Volkswagen in the 3800 block of West Monroe about an hour after the 7-Eleven robbery and saw three men wearing ski masks running away from it, according to prosecutors.
Would you please support CWBChicago’s reporting efforts
with a contribution or subscription?
Officers arrested two of those men: Henley and Hasberry. The third got away. Police found a handgun in Henley’s waistband and another in a yard near Hasberry, prosecutors said. They were wearing distinctive clothing like the 7-Eleven robbers wore, according to the store’s surveillance footage.
According to Hasberry’s public defender, he lives in Carpentersville with his four children and works full-time at Chili’s as a food runner. Prosecutors said he has three prior felony convictions, two for narcotics and one for possessing a stolen motor vehicle.
Judge Charles Beach ordered him to pay a $30,000 bail deposit to get out of jail on electronic monitoring. Separately, Beach held him without bail on a Kane County warrant for domestic battery.
Henley lives in Oak Park with his girlfriend and his two children, according to his defense attorney.
He was convicted of two 2017 armed robberies and received two concurrent 10-year sentences. He was released from prison on August 25 after serving five years, Illinois Department of Corrections records show.
Henley was on parole for a narcotics case at the time of the 2017 robberies, the Chicago Tribune reported at the time.
Beach held Henley without bail on new charges of armed robbery and unlawful use of a firearm by a felon. The judge also held him without bail while IDOC reviews Henley’s parole status.
