Couple In Horror After Being Robbed And Carjacked At Gunpoint In Edgewater, Thinking They Were Going To Be Shot
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A couple went running for their lives Wednesday night after armed carjackers attacked them just around the corner from the Bryn Mawr Red Line station in Edgewater.
CBS 2's Jermont Terry spoke with the terrified man and woman, both 30, who could not believe how quickly the carjackers pulled up on them. Just as they were jumping into their own sport-utility vehicle, they were ordered out at gunpoint – fearful that they would get shot.
"He put it, like, double-bumped it against my chest and I could feel the weight of it," the male victim said.
He was talking about the metal weight of a gun from a robber. Just as he and his fiancée had returned to their SUV around 7:40 p.m. in the 5500 block of North Winthrop Avenue, they found themselves the targets of an armed carjacking.
"The guy came up behind me and kind of turned me around and put a gun to my chest and said, 'If you move, I'll kill you,'" the man said.
As he was ordered to the ground, his fiancée was told to get out of the passenger seat.
"They grabbed me by the hand and they pushed me away from the car," she said.
The woman ran to the corner of Bryn Mawr and Winthrop avenues and screamed for help. He she said no one stepped up.
"I'm just amazed that people could see me asking for help on this corner and they didn't do anything," the woman said as she began to cry. "They didn't do anything. They were just staring."
The woman eventually ran into a Subway sandwich shop on Bryn Mawr Avenue, where they locked the doors and called 911. But keep in mind that she was removed from her fiancé and did not know if he was safe.
"I didn't know if they were going to shoot him," she said.
And he had the same worries about her.
"No, I had no idea that they had taken her out of the vehicle," he said. "I actually thought that she was still in vehicle, and that's why I took off down the street running and screaming."
They eventually discovered both were safe. Police responded, but the couple's black Audi Q5 is gone.
"It's not worth it, because if you pull trigger out of fear, you might be hurting someone that you don't mean to hurt them," the woman said.
The couple was shaken, but thankful late Wednesday that they were able to go home. They did not get a good look at the carjackers or the car the assailants pulled up in.
Police were looking for surveillance video late Wednesday night.
There have been more than 1,400 carjacking victims in Chicago this year, a figure more than double that of last year.
Two people have been shot and killed in the course of carjackings just this month.
Shuai Guan, 33, was murdered during the course of a carajacking a week ago Monday Monday. It was 6:30 p.m. when carjackers approached Guan outside their Bridgeport home on Union Avenue near 30th Street.
The investigation reveals that Guan double-parked to check the mail. Several gunmen pulled up in two stolen cars, demanding his Jeep.
He gave up the keys and the Jeep then backed away.
"No, they didn't take the car," Guan's wife, Hongyu Bai, told CBS 2's Terry. "They don't know how to drive the car."
Mad at that fact, the carjackers fired a single shot, leaving a 4-year-old without a father.
And around 2 p.m. on Dec 3, retired Chicago Fire Department Lt. Dwain Williams, 65, was leaving the Let's Get Poppin popcorn store at 11758 S. Western Ave. and was walking to his vehicle, when a four-door dark-colored sedan pulled up and four males got out and bum rushed him.
The carjackers fired at Williams, and Williams returned fire. Williams was shot in the abdomen and was later pronounced dead at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn.
Three suspects have been charged in the attack on Williams. One teenage suspect has been charged, but not with murder, in the attack on Guan.
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