Police: Man shot to death during attempted carjacking in Noble Square

A Vernon Hills man was shot to death during an attempted carjacking early Thursday in the Noble Square neighborhood, police said.

Jesus Delo-Jiminez, 28, was dropping off a female acquaintance in the 1200 block of North Greenview about 2:05 a.m. when another man exited a white vehicle nearby and attempted to carjack him, according to Chicago Police.

He refused to give up his vehicle, a gray Infiniti, and the suspect fired shots, striking him in the torso, police said. The victim tried to drive away, but crashed into a parked Nissan. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

The Cook County Medical Examiner’s office said Delo-Jimenez lived in the 800 block of North Lakeside in Vernon Hills.

No other injuries were reported. Area North detectives were conducting a homicide investigation.

“We’re optimistic that there’s some private [surveillance] video that could have captured the incident,” said Chicago Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.

Justin Dolan told Network Video Productions that he was about to go to sleep when he heard gunshots and ran outside.

“I heard ‘boom boom’ and I thought, oh, that’s something serious,” Dolan said.

He saw another couple who had just been dropped off run over to the car but quickly return, saying the man already was dead.

“I thought it was a safe neighborhood,” said Dolan, adding that he moved to Chicago two months ago and had “no problems at all until tonight.”

“We have seen an uptick in carjackings, but really juvenile-related carjackings,” Guglielmi said. “What gangs are doing now. . . .they’re using the juveniles in more and more incidents, whether it be shootings or carjackings.”

So far this year, there have been 487 carjackings in the city. At the same time period in 2016, there were 321, Guglielmi said, adding that arrests in these incidents are up by 16.7 percent compared to last year.