Chicago man gets 16-year sentence for attempted Downers Grove carjacking

A Chicago man pleaded guilty Monday to trying to hijack a vehicle in Downers Grove.

Carlos Hendricks, 22, was sentenced to 16 years in prison in exchange for the plea to one count of attempted aggravated vehicular hijacking, officials said. He will have to serve at least half his sentence before becoming eligible for parole.

On Feb. 6, 2020, Downers Grove police were called around 4:15 a.m. to investigate gunshots at a house on the 7400 block of Webster.

A resident of the home had started the car to warm it up. Then she saw, through the house's front window, a vehicle stop with its headlights off. Two people got out and walked up the driveway. Two residents went out and confronted the men.

The men returned to their vehicle - which had been stolen in Chicago - and then a teenage boy sitting in the car shot at the woman.

Police chased the vehicle until it crashed on Martin Luther King Drive in Chicago.

Last July, a 17-year-old boy pleaded guilty to possession of a stolen motor vehicle. In June 2020, another boy, by then 18, pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated possession of a stolen motor vehicle. Both were given indeterminate sentences to the custody of the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice, to last no longer than their 21st birthdays.

The fourth suspect, 22-year-old Lamourice Shepherd of Chicago, also pleaded guilty to the same charge on April 30. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison and will have to serve at least half his sentence before becoming eligible for parole.