Police Chase Follows 2 Gunpoint Carjackings in 3 Hours

EVANSTON, IL — Two women were carjacked at gunpoint within three hours Thursday night.

First, about 9 p.m., two men walked up on a 39-year-old woman sitting in a Mazda CX-9 stopped on Fowler Avenue and menaced her with a handgun, according to a statement released by the Evanston police.

The men took the woman’s wallet and drove off in her car.

Then, just after midnight, two men ambushed a 36-year-old woman right after she parked on Washington Street.

Again, one of the men brandished a handgun. He demanded the woman’s keys and purse, and then split with his partner in the woman’s Acura.

Neither woman was injured.

While police were responding to the second carjacking, officers spotted both the Mazda and the Acura heading east on Harvard Terrace from Barton Avenue, one behind the other.

Both vehicles fled the law, with the Mazda continuing east and the Acura turning south.

“The Mazda crashed into the security gate of a residence in the 200 block of Custer Avenue with the offender fleeing on foot,” police said. “The Acura proceeded into Chicago … with the pursuit being terminated by patrol supervisors a short time later.”

Police later found the Acura abandoned on Jonquil Terrace. Officers recovered a loaded .38-caliber revolver from the Mazda.

Police towed the two vehicles so they could be processed for evidence.

The carjackers remain at large.