A pair of suspected carjackers are being held in Cook County jail after prosecutors claimed they made a spectacularly stupid move by attempting to sell the snatched car back to its owner just hours after seizing it at gunpoint. Their scheme crumbled when Chicago police squad cars drove by as the cash-for-car swap was in progress, and the victim chose to flag down the cops rather than pay for his car.
According to a CPD report, around 3 a.m. on June 28, a 23-year-old man was sitting in his vehicle with his brother in an alley behind the 900 block of North Central Park Avenue when 35-year-old Trevail Tyree approached the driver’s side with a revolver. According to the detention petition, William Tanksley, 38, walked to the passenger side and began yanking the driver’s brother’s arm, attempting to push him out of the vehicle.
The driver yelled that he would not let Tanksley take his brother out of the car, and Tyree responded by shooting a shot into the dashboard, according to the police report.
Fearing for their lives, both brothers exited the car, and Tyree and Tanksley drove away, according to authorities. A Chicago police surveillance camera purportedly filmed at least some of the carjacking.
Less than three hours later, Tyree and Tanksley phoned one of the brothers via the other brother’s stolen cellphone, offering to return the vehicle in exchange for cash, according to the police report. The parties arranged to meet in the same alley where the carjacking took place.
As the exchange began around 5:30 a.m., one of the victims noticed two Chicago police squad cars going by and flagged them down to explain what was happening. Officers investigated, returned the vehicle’s keys to the owner, and arrested Tyree and Tanksley, according to the CPD report.
Tyree, who lives on the block where the hijacking occurred, and the Tanksley men have each been charged with two counts of discharging a handgun during a vehicular hijacking. Judge Deirdre Dyer granted both men’s detention motions. She also determined Tyree breached the terms of his pretrial release in a pending narcotics case and ordered him held in that case as well.
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