Man charged in hit-and-run outside River North nightclub - Chicago News and Weather | FOX 32 News

A west suburban Melrose Park man was charged with attempted murder after he allegedly mowed down two men with his car outside a River North nightclub last weekend.

Alejandro Escobar apparently grew angry when a bystander saw him and his wife arguing and advised him not to treat his spouse that way, Cook County prosecutors said.

Escobar, 37, ended up throwing a punch in an ensuing brawl and was escorted off the club property, in the 100 block of West Ontario Street, authorities said.

Still incensed, Escobar returned to the club in his 2009 red Honda Accord and revved the engine repeatedly in an effort to scare the people he had been fighting, prosecutors said. As two men walked away in the early morning hours of Oct. 7, Escobar allegedly drove up on the sidewalk and hit them.

Escobar pinned one of the men beneath his car and ran him over before reversing over his body multiple times as witnesses screamed for him to stop, prosecutors said. Escobar then drove east on Ontario Street, a one-way street going west as he fled from the scene, police said.

Two victims, ages 23 and 30, were taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital. One man was released without life-threatening injuries, while the other remained in critical condition Saturday with a fractured face and a hematoma on his head, prosecutors said.

Escobar, who has a string of prior felonies, was arrested at his home Friday.

He faces two counts of attempted first degree murder.