CHICAGO — Late last year, we told you about Cedric Johnson, a man accused of carjacking and gun possession, after Judge William Fahy rejected the state’s detention request and sent him home on electronic monitoring.
Last week, Johnson once again appeared before Fahy. Prosecutors said, still on electronic monitoring, he got caught with a gun while riding in an Uber. That still wasn’t enough to convince Fahy to keep him in jail on the new allegations. Although the judge did agree to detain Johnson until the judge handling the carjacking case had a chance to review the matter.
Here’s the scoop.
Back on December 23, a 55-year-old woman was outside her car in the first block of West Hubbard when a man jumped behind the wheel and drove away, knocking her to the ground and causing a head injury, according to a Chicago police report.
Less than an hour later, cops found the woman’s BMW X1 crashed near the 6300 block of South Normal.
Two witnesses told cops they saw a man run from the BMW’s driver’s seat holding a firearm. Officers followed the driver’s route and arrested Johnson on the rear porch of a boarded-up, abandoned home. The cops also found a loaded handgun with an extended ammunition magazine under the porch steps, prosecutors said.
What’s more, CPD found a video showing Johnson standing across the street from the carjacking scene about two minutes before the BMW was taken, officials said.
Citing the violent nature of the carjacking, the allegations that police found a gun near Johnson, and the fact that Johnson was adjudicated delinquent for robbery as a juvenile, prosecutors asked Fahy to keep Johnson in custody during a detention hearing on Christmas Day. Fahy spiked that idea and sent Johnson home on an ankle monitor.
Last Thursday, June 6, Chicago police officers saw a car with no front plate in traffic. They made a U-turn, realized the car also had a non-functioning brake light, and pulled it over, according to a CPD report.
According to the report, the driver was working for Uber, and his backseat passenger was Cedric Johnson.
Detecting the smell of burning pot and eyeing an aerosol product marketed to conceal the smell of burnt pot inside the car, the officers asked the driver and Johnson to step out, the report said.
Police said they found a loaded handgun with an extended magazine under the rear of the driver’s seat, close to where Johnson’s feet had been. The seat design made it impossible for the gun to slide from the front of the seat to the back, leading the cops to conclude that Johnson had possession of the weapon, according to the report.
Both men denied possessing the gun, and the Uber driver said there should not be any weapons in the vehicle.
In court the next day, prosecutors charged Johnson with aggravated unlawful use of a weapon, and they once again asked Fahy to detain him on the gun charge. And, once again, Fahy said no. Instead, Fahy ordered Johnson to go on electronic monitoring in the new case.
However, the judge did detain Johnson for three days for violating pretrial release in the carjacking case. During a second detention hearing on Monday, Judge Alfredo Maldonado agreed to keep Johnson in custody.
