Three Carjackings Reported In Five Hours In Edgewater And Irving Park
CHICAGO (CBS) -- It's just one carjacking after the next. There were two more on the same block in Edgewater late Thursday night, and then another in Irving Park early Friday morning.
CBS 2's Mugo Odigwe spoke with one of the latest victims.
Edwin Inguanzo said he was parked close to his workplace when he was carjacked on the 4300 block of West Cornelia Avenue around 4:50 a.m.
"I was here just waiting for my friend to start working, and a car parked behind me," he said.
Inguanzo was sitting in his parked Mazda near work, waiting for a friend so they could walk in together. He got out of his Mazda when his friend approached, but that's also when people in the car parked behind him walked out and cornered him and his friend.
"They pulled guns out and they stole my wallet, his wallet, and the car," Inguanzo said.
Inguanzo said there were multiple people involved; the two armed guys who approached him and his friend, another guy behind the wheel of the car that had parked behind him, and then he noticed others.
"There was a lady inside the car and one kid, like a 4-year-old," he said.
Police said, hours before that, around 11:30 p.m. Thursday in Edgewater near Broadway and Thorndale, a 56-year-old man and his 17-year-old son were sitting in a blue Volvo when four guys in a black Honda pulled up, and two of them got out pointing guns, and telling the father and son to get out of their car.
The carjackers took off in the Volvo, but just moments later, they noticed a woman in a BMW at a stop sign on the same block. They got out of the Volvo they had just stolen, pointed a gun at the woman, and then took off in her BMW, along with the Honda they first arrived in.
They left the Volvo behind.
Police eventually found the BMW several miles away, ditched in an alley near 18th and Avers in Lawndale.
None of the victims were hurt, but it's still a terrifying experience for victims like Inguanzo.
"Oh, I was scared. I'm a little scared," he said. "People should be careful."
Police said the suspects in this Edgewater carjackings were likely teenagers.
Top brass have said that seems to be the case in many cases during the surge in carjackings across Chicago in the past several months.
Carjackings in Chicago more than doubled last year, rising from about 600 in 2019 to more than 1,400 in 2020.
So far this year, that trend has only gotten worse, with more than 150 carjackings across the city so far, or more than five per day.
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