CHICAGO — A man who carjacked a driver in the Loop earlier this year while on pretrial release for two other felony cases has been given a six-year prison sentence.
The victim, who was leaving work around 7 a.m. on January 6, drove out of a garage in the 1100 block of South Wabash, turned on his hazard lights, and ran inside to hand off the garage key to the next shift, officials said.
When he returned to his car, Rodney Henderson, 36, was in the driver’s seat.
“Give me the keys, or I’ll shoot you,” Henderson allegedly threatened.
The victim, who recognized Henderson as someone who had struck up a conversation with him shortly before his shift ended, ran away with the keys. Prosecutors said Henderson chased him down and “pried” the keys from the victim’s fingers.
He returned to the man’s 2015 Volkswagen Passat and sped away, only to crash almost immediately, according to the state. Chicago police officers tracked Henderson’s escape route with the city’s surveillance camera network, eventually arresting him on a Green Line train at Cermak-McCormick Place.
Henderson has resolved the matter by pleading guilty to vehicular hijacking in exchange for a six-year sentence from Judge Ursula Walowski, according to court records.
Before it’s all said and done, though, he may be spending even more time behind bars.
Two suburban cases he had pending at the time of the hijacking are still working their way through the courts. In those cases, Henderson is accused of having a loaded gun in a duffle bag in the Orland Square parking lot after he got caught shoplifting last summer. Prosecutors said he also had stolen plates on his car.
