Two men, both convicted felons, charged with robbing a couple at gunpoint in the West Loop on Wednesday night, have been held without bail by a Cook County judge.
Chicago police arrested Simeon Allen, 24, and Devonta Thomas, 26, after a CPD helicopter unit shadowed their getaway car until it crashed on the West Side, officials said. Investigators suspected the vehicle had been used in two other robberies the same evening, but prosecutors said only one victim identified Allen and Thomas in photo line-ups.
Shortly after 9 p.m., a man and woman were walking back to their parked car when Thompson and Allen ran up to them while brandishing firearms in the first block of North Green, authorities said.
Both men shouted for the couple to surrender their purse, wallets, cash, and phones, and Thompson pushed the male victim, 39, against a car, prosecutors said. The woman, 36, screamed for help, attracting the attention of someone in an apartment across the street.
Prosecutors said that Thompson and Allen took the couple’s property and ran to a Chrysler 300 waiting nearby. But one of the victims memorized the car’s license plate, and Chicago police began tracking the vehicle with CPD’s citywide network of license plate readers.
A Chicago police helicopter located the car as it traveled through the city, and the air unit crew saw three people run from the vehicle after it crashed into a parked car in the 100 block of North Hoyne. Patrol officers arrested Thompson and Allen nearby.
Prosecutors said Thompson had the Chrysler’s key and the male robbery victim’s credit card in his pocket. Thompson’s phone was allegedly under the car’s driver’s seat.
The male robbery victim identified both men in photo line-ups, but prosecutors said everyone else who tried to identify the robbers picked the wrong people.
Allen is charged with two counts of armed robbery with a firearm and Class X armed habitual criminal. Prosecutors said he was convicted of unlawful use of a weapon in 2017 and unlawful use of a firearm by a felon in 2019. He received a five-year sentence for the latter case and was discharged from parole on September 27.
His public defender said he has a child on the way.
Thompson is charged with two counts of armed robbery with a firearm. He was convicted of possessing a stolen motor vehicle and aggravated fleeing in 2019.
He is a high school graduate with one child.
Judge Mary Marubio issued no-bail orders for both men at the state’s request.
Two other robberies were reported within an hour of the Green Street robbery, but prosecutors did not charge Thompson or Allen with either of those crimes.
In Lincoln Park, a 28-year-old man told police that he was walking in the 1900 block of North Kenmore when two men confronted him with two firearms and ordered him to lie on the ground, according to police shortly after 10 p.m. Wednesday. They took the man’s valuables and ran south on Kenmore. A witness saw them leave the area in a light-colored Chrysler.
A man and woman, both 37, were confronted by two masked men who displayed two handguns in the 600 block of North Ogden. The offenders went through the victims’ pockets and took their property. In a media statement, police said the offenders fled in a gray Dodge Charger, but a source said the vehicle may have been the Chrysler 300.