Major cities have seen an increase in carjackings and car thefts during the COVID pandemic. Washington, D.C., is receiving the most attention because as of January 20 it averages at least one a day.
A carjacking takes place in the presence of the victim. Car theft is stealing an unattended car.
This is important because people are literally taking a person’s car from them in front of the person. I’m disappointed outlets rarely note the difference. It seems to me people have become bolder and don’t care about the consequences.
Oh, look. The majority happen in blue cities with rampant crime. Good old Chicago leads the way. From CNN:
- More than 1,800 carjackings were reported in Chicago last year, the most of any large city, according to data released by police departments to CNN. Chicago’s 2021 tally was the most on record over the last 20 years. Carjackings had been steadily declining in the city after 2001, hitting a low of 303 in 2014, but began to tick upward before skyrocketing to 1,400 in 2020 following the onset of the pandemic. Last year saw more than five times as many carjackings as in 2014.
“It is lawless,” said Raymond Lopez, an alderman for Chicago’s 15th Ward. “It doesn’t feel lawless. It is.”Chicago’s clearance rate for carjackings is low, and has further declined during the pandemic. According to the University of Chicago’s Crime Lab, only 11% of carjacking offenses resulted in an arrest in 2020, down from 20% in 2019. Just 4.5% of offenses resulted in charges approved by the State Attorney’s Office.
Lopez said, “It’s like the perfect storm, where all these soft on crime policies have come to a head during this pandemic.”
Chicago will send home people with electronic monitoring. They will “sometimes reoffend while awaiting trial”:
Lopez said the choice to not take crime seriously among young teens will have consequences years later when they age out of the juvenile justice system.”When you have carjackers who are 15 on their third car, that’s a problem,” he said.
Axios reported that D.C. has seen “over 200 auto thefts” in January 2022. The district had over 7,000 car thefts in the past two years.
Carjackings are also up in D.C. with 37 between January 1 and 20. That means it has at least one carjacking a day:
Zoom in: Carjackings are also up in D.C. MPD shared data with Axios showing there was an 18% increase from 2020 to 2021 and a staggering 153% increase from 2019 to 2020. As of January 20, there had been 37 carjackings in D.C. this year.
- In 2021, 49 adults and 100 juveniles were arrested for carjacking. That’s way up from 59 juveniles arrested for carjacking in 2020.
D.C.’s carjacking problem appeared on the radar last year when two teenage girls carjacked and murdered a Pakistani Uber Eats driver. Mike wrote that by the end of March 2021 D.C. had 101 carjackings.
D.C. might hit 101 in February.
Four men carjacked Nate Fleming, a D.C. Council candidate, on January 20. He “was in fear for my life” and felt “lucky to be alive.” They took his black BMW.
Philadelphia has had 100 carjackings so far this year. Its problem got national attention when a 19-year-old carjacked Pennsylvania Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon at gunpoint in December.
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