Real Brain Trust Here

If criminals were smart, they might be more dangerous than this:

• A pair of alleged carjackers are being held in the Cook County jail after prosecutors said they made a spectacularly bad decision: trying to sell the hijacked car back to its owner just hours after taking it at gunpoint. Their plan unraveled when Chicago police squad cars happened to drive past as the cash-for-car exchange was underway and the victim decided to flag down the cops rather than pay money for his own car.

  At about 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 armed with a handgun, according to a CPD report. At the same time, 38-year-old William Tanksley allegedly went to the passenger side and began pulling the driver’s brother by the arm, trying to force him out of the vehicle, according to the detention petition.

  The driver shouted that he would not let Tanksley take his brother out of the car and Tyree responded by firing a shot into the vehicle’s dashboard, according to the police report. Fearing for their lives, both brothers got out of the car, and Tyree and Tanksley drove away in it, according to the police. A Chicago police surveillance camera reportedly captured at least part of the carjacking.

  Less than three hours later, police said, Tyree and Tanksley contacted one of the brothers using the other brother’s stolen cellphone and offered to return the vehicle in exchange for cash, the police report stated. The parties agreed to meet in the same alley where the carjacking had occurred. As the exchange was taking place around 5:30 a.m., one of the victims spotted two Chicago police squad cars driving nearby and flagged them down to explain what was happening. Officers investigated, returned the vehicle’s keys to its owner, and arrested Tyree and Tanksley, according to the CPD report.

We were kind of hoping for a different ending, where the victims used the three hours to find their own gun or guns, and when the carjackers showed up, they returned the favor and prevented future carjackings via some old fashioned justice.