CHICAGO — Two men are charged with attacking and robbing a Red Line passenger after Chicago cops used the city’s surveillance camera network and location data from an AirTag to locate them less than an hour after the crime, officials said.
Christopher Owens, 19, and Claude Elder, 44, were detained by Judge William Fahy, who said they both have “extensive” criminal records.
The 20-year-old victim boarded a train at 69th Street with his electric bike and headed downtown to deliver for DoorDash around 8 a.m. on December 22, according to a court filing.
Somewhere between Sox-35th and Cermak-Chinatown, Owens and Eldger allegedly approached the victim and started talking to him. But the victim, a native Spanish speaker, didn’t understand anything they said other than “f*** you,” the filing stated. Holding onto his bike while seated, he told the men he didn’t want any problems.
With that, Owens allegedly punched the victim in the face and displayed a small knife while Elder put the victim into a chokehold for about 15 seconds and slammed him onto the seat, prosecutors said in detention petitions.
Owens and Elder took the man’s electric bike and switched to a southbound train at Cermak, officials said. The victim exited at Roosevelt and reported the robbery to a couple of patrol officers.
The victim called a friend who had given him the bike as a gift and told him what had happened. According to a CPD report, the friend arrived at the scene within a few minutes and provided cops with a picture of the bike, its make and model, and the real-time location of an AirTag he had placed on it.
The police report said officers found Elder and Owens standing next to the bike around 8:40 a.m. as they tried to enter a motel room in the 7600 block of South Cottage Grove.
Judge Fahy’s detention orders said Elder has eight previous felony convictions and was recently discharged from parole. Owens has an “extensive” juvenile history and was on pretrial release for a juvenile case at the time of the robbery, Fahy’s order said.
Both men are charged with aggravated robbery and aggravated battery of a transit passenger.
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