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'I Was Screaming': Chicago Woman Recounts Her Carjacking On Tuesday

CHICAGO (CBS) --  A Chicago woman on Wednesday shared her terrifying story of being carjacked at gunpoint, right in the middle of the day.

As CBS 2's Steven Graves reported, the woman was ending a shift for the day, sitting in her sport-utility vehicle. The carjacking happened in seconds.

That woman said she is now scared to drive.

From her home, she wanted CBS 2 to hide her identity out of fear.

"You never think it's going to happen to you. Especially during the day," she said.

She spoke about the moment carjackers pointed a gun at her as she sat inside her SUV on Huron Street at Washtenaw Avenue with doors locked.

"I just heard the tapping, like 'get out, get out, get out!' and that gun tapping on the window," she remembered. "And when I turned, it was right in front of my face. Right in front of my eyes."

She got out and ran to the passenger side to get her purse and phone to call someone.

As she ran for her life, she said no one was outside of their homes a the time.

"I was screaming because, if he's going to shoot, then who's going to see? If I'm laying down somewhere, who is going to see me," she wondered.

They drove off with her Honda CRV.

Chicago police consoled her as she shook on the sidewalk. Officers told her she was part of a string of carjackings on Tuesday.

The one before hers happened on Morgan Street at Carroll Avenue in the West Loop. Another one happened at Ridgeway Avenue and Ferdinand Street in Humboldt Park.

All of the carjackings happened within about an hour, and all with two or three armed suspects.

Each victim was a woman.

"It was just one after the other. So they're trying to figure out if it's the same group, the same people," the woman said.

That's what she said police told her. But she did recognize one feature.

And it's a common thread officers said is popular among more than 700 carjackings the city has seen this year.

"Even with the ski mask, I could see how young they were," she said.

The good news is - none of women were injured.

But a few hours later, another man was carjacked in the South Loop. It's unclear if that one is connected to the others.

 

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