Man charged with robbing Uber driver last month is now accused of 2 carjackings, including one ending with a woman shot

Renard McGee and a frame from a video of the robbery crew. (Cook County sheriff’s office, Chicago Police Department)

CHICAGO — A DeKalb man arrested last month after covert Chicago police officers allegedly saw him and four other men carjack an Uber driver while armed with an AK-47 has even more trouble to deal with.

Prosecutors now say Renard McGee, 18, was part of a crew that carjacked two people at gunpoint, shooting one in the neck, in Logan Square on March 16. The crimes happened within yards of each other around 1:30 p.m.

In new court filings, prosecutors say McGee was with a group of hijackers who shot and critically injured a 39-year-old woman while trying to carjack her 2003 Mercedes in the 2900 block of North Ridgeway. The victim was critically injured, police said at the time.

After the shooting, the group gave up on that carjacking attempt and turned their attention to a 20-year-old man who was nearby in the 3700 block of West George. In court filings, prosecutors identified McGee as the robber who pointed a gun with a laser sight at a witness while the group took the victim’s car.

The new charges filed against McGee include attempted first-degree murder, vehicular hijacking while armed with a weapon, and attempted aggravated vehicular hijacking. Judge William Fahy detained him on the new allegations.

McGee has been in jail since prosecutors charged him and four other people with robbing an Uber driver at gunpoint around 7 a.m. on March 24.

Five robbers pointed three guns, including an AK-47, at the 27-year-old victim near the corner of Ohio and Harding, prosecutors said. They took his phones and wallet, then returned to a stolen Dodge Charger and fled the scene, according to allegations filed in court.

But an undercover Chicago police unit assigned to the city’s hijacking task force happened to be working near the intersection, and they saw the robbery go down. The undercover unit notified dispatchers and kept the Charger under surveillance with the help of other covert units, marked and unmarked patrol cars, and a CPD helicopter, according to arrest reports filed in the case.

Cops found six males inside the home, including McGee, who was allegedly hiding in a hallway closet.

Two days after police arrested the crew, detectives released surveillance video of a group of men that they linked to the Logan Square robberies that McGee is now charged with. The videos show men jumping out of cars and running down streets, often armed with handguns, as they committed robberies across the city.

“This is a robbery. Give me everything you got,” the group frequently announced, according to CPD. After getting cash, wallets, passports, purses, credit cards, and other valuables, the crew moved on to commit more crimes.

CPD said the team was responsible for committing 14 robberies on March 16. McGee is charged in connection with two of them.

After Judge Maryam Ahmad detained McGee last month, his defense attorneys appealed her detention order. They argued that McGee had been struck by a car three or four weeks before the Uber driver was robbed and, due to pins placed in his leg, he was in no condition to be committing robberies. The appeal is still pending.