A West Side man who carjacked a CTA bus and held its driver at gunpoint last year has been sentenced to 10 years in prison, though he could be free in less than three.
Judge Arthur Willis found 34-year-old Cortez Flowers guilty of aggravated vehicular hijacking and aggravated unlawful restraint in a bench trial on December 5, according to court records. Willis recently imposed the sentence, which also includes a concurrent one-year term for a felony driving case Flowers was on bail for when the hijacking occurred.
With statutory credit for good behavior, Flowers’ 10-year term will be reduced to five. He has already earned more than 600 days of credit for time served in Cook County Jail while awaiting trial.
Prosecutors said Flowers hijacked a #54 Cicero bus after it pulled into the Montrose and Cicero terminal around 10:45 p.m. on January 13, 2024. The bus driver, who had allowed Flowers to stay on board for the southbound trip as long as he did not cause problems, reboarded after a short break and found Flowers standing in the aisle with a gun.
Flowers ordered the driver to “be afraid” and directed him to drive north, then back onto his usual route, according to court filings. The ordeal lasted about 25 minutes before Flowers got off at Division and Cicero. Officials said the bus driver had tried to trigger the vehicle’s panic alarm but mistakenly pressed the wrong button.
Chicago police fed CTA video images through facial recognition technology to identify Flowers. Officers later staked out his home and arrested him.
“That’s me,” Flowers allegedly admitted when shown an image of the hijacker, though he claimed he had simply fallen asleep on the bus and woken up looking for his wallet. Detectives wrote that he later conceded the episode was “a big mistake.”
He was already facing a felony charge for driving on a license suspended due to DUI, a crime for which he had prior convictions in 2011, twice in 2013, and 2021, officials said.
Flowers is scheduled to be paroled, fittingly, on Valentine’s Day 2028.
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