A car wanted in connection with a carjacking in West Suburban Montgomery led Illinois State Police troopers on a chase early Wednesday that stretched from the Dan Ryan Expressway to Chicago's West Side, ending with three arrests, a foot chase, and a recovered gun after the vehicle slammed into two parked cars.
Troopers first tried to pull the car over on the southbound Dan Ryan Expressway near 79th Street, according to CBS Chicago. Instead of stopping, the driver sped off, kicking off a pursuit that covered several miles before ending on the city's West Side. State police said the car was wanted by police in Montgomery, Illinois — a village near Aurora, roughly 45 miles southwest of downtown Chicago, according to O'Neil Property Group — in connection with a carjacking there.
The chase covered an estimated 11 to 12 miles northwest across the city, according to the same CBS Chicago report, before the car crashed into two parked vehicles near Grenshaw Street and Central Park Avenue. That intersection sits in the North Lawndale neighborhood, about six miles west of the Loop, per Apartments.com. All three occupants ran from the car after the crash, but Illinois State Police ultimately arrested all three. Troopers also recovered a gun, the outlet reported.
Why State Troopers, Not Chicago Police, Led the Chase
The Dan Ryan Expressway falls under the jurisdiction of Illinois State Police Troop 3, based in Des Plaines, which holds primary responsibility for state highways and interstate corridors across Cook County — a jurisdictional detail Hoodline reported in coverage of a separate deadly incident on the same expressway. That authority is why troopers, rather than Chicago police, initiated Wednesday's traffic stop.
The pursuit also fits within a broader enforcement push. Troop 3 launched a dedicated expressway surge mission in May targeting reckless driving, fleeing vehicles, and criminal activity on Chicago-area interstates, according to a Facebook post from Illinois State Police Troop 3. State police have also installed more than 100 automated license plate reader cameras along the Dan Ryan specifically to flag stolen vehicles and track fleeing felony suspects, per a separate Facebook post attributed to Illinois State Police Troop 3.
What Charges Could Follow
Under Illinois statute 720 ILCS 5/18-4, aggravated vehicular hijacking involving a firearm is a Class X felony carrying 6 to 30 years in prison plus a mandatory 15-year firearm enhancement, with no possibility of probation, according to the Phil Haddad Law Chicago firm. Separately, fleeing or attempting to elude a peace officer becomes aggravated fleeing — a Class 4 felony punishable by 1 to 3 years in prison and fines up to $25,000 — when the flight causes more than $300 in property damage or involves speeds 21 mph or more over the limit, per Illinois Vehicle Code 625 ILCS 5/11-204.1 as detailed by FindLaw. The crash into two parked vehicles on Grenshaw Street would appear to meet that property-damage threshold, though it remains unclear whether formal charges have been filed in Cook County for the fleeing and gun-related conduct, or in Kane or Kendall County for the original carjacking.
Illinois State Police pursuit policy, known as Directive OPS-003, generally restricts troopers from chasing vehicles over minor traffic violations but explicitly allows pursuits tied to violent felonies such as armed carjacking, according to Capitol News Illinois. That distinction explains why troopers maintained the chase from the expressway into a residential West Side neighborhood rather than breaking it off.
Part of a Larger Pattern of West Side Carjacking Cases
Wednesday's arrests add to a string of carjacking-related cases Hoodline has tracked across the Chicago area this year, including a 100-mph Wheaton carjacking chase in July and an Irving Park gunpoint carjacking that led to charges against a Chicago man and a teenager weeks later. In May, a 14-year-old was charged in a West Side carjacking of a disabled woman, and in April, another Chicago man was arrested following a separate West Side carjacking.
Those cases reflect a broader statistical shift: multi-agency task force operations and automated license-plate tracking have helped drive Chicago vehicular hijackings down from 1,852 incidents in 2021 to 379 reported through late October 2025. The exact identities and ages of the three people arrested Wednesday have not been released, and it remains unresolved whether investigators have confirmed that automated license plate readers on the expressway were what first flagged the car to troopers.
