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Politics of fear The cops say masked teen carjackers with a thirst for violence and joyrides are terrorizing the city. An examination of arrests reveals a narrative built on shoddy data and anecdotal evidence. By MAYA DUKMASOVA
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n January 22, the City Council’s public safety committee held a five-and-a-half hour Zoom hearing on carjackings, a crime that has surged across the country since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. Last year Chicago had more than 1,400 carjackings—800 more than in 2019, and the highest it’s been in two decades. News about these attacks were on TV and in the papers nearly every day. “Three CPD Officers Wounded In Shootout With Carjacking Suspect,” CBS2 reported in July. “Boy, 15, Fatally Struck on Eisenhower Expressway Following Carjacking,” NBC5 announced in September. “Ride-share drivers carjacked in Roseland,” the Sun-Times proclaimed in November. “Chicago carjacking numbers not slowing,” a Tribune headline declared in January, above a map that, at first glance, makes the whole city look awash in carjacking cases. “Carjackers smash window, pull woman and daughter, 2, from vehicle in Wicker Park carjacking, Chicago police say,” ABC7 informed us two weeks ago. The mayor and other city and county officials were regularly asked to weigh in on what appears to be an out-of-control crime wave.
Police top brass have frequently addressed carjackings in press conferences, at first telling the public that the stolen cars were used to commit other crimes, then adjusting their analysis to say that most carjackings were done by youth seeking joyrides. Before aldermen began grilling representatives from the Chicago Police Department, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, Sheriff ’s Office, and the Illinois State Police during the committee meeting, several city residents demanded accountability during the public comment period. “I’m really tired of feeling like a victim when I come out of my house . . . I can’t feel comfortable inside my car anymore,” said one South Shore resident. She said carjackers were using the pandemic to hide behind masks, and suggested police institute an Amber Alert system for stolen cars. A Calumet Heights resident said her 30-year-old son had been paralyzed after an attempted carjacking in 2019. “Despite video of the attack, no one had been arrested. Arrest and prosecute offenders regardless of age,” she said. “Our residents are extremely afraid,” said
Seventh Ward superintendent Marcello Siggers. “They don’t want to hear about why these kids may be doing it because they’re not in school—they don’t want to hear about all of that. They want these people held accountable for their actions.” The perception that young people have been behind the spike in carjackings has been driven by the Chicago Police Department’s selective reporting of its own data. “The majority of our offenders are between 15 and 20 years of age,” Chief of Detectives Brendan Deenihan said at the hearing, flashing a PowerPoint slide in the Zoom meeting. He said that while south and west side neighborhoods have been hit hardest, “there is no neighborhood that’s immune to this crime.” Deenihan said typically victims are attacked while on their phone in their cars, and the most common location of an attack is “not a gas station, it’s not the grocery store, it’s not your driveway, it’s all of the above.” He said that “there’s unbelievably emboldened criminals” and that when police try to detain them they “take off at high rates of speed and it’s very difficult to stop them.” Victims rarely identify offenders “who stuck a gun in their
face for four seconds while armed with a mask and hoodie.” He said that most vehicles are abandoned within a few hours and repeated that the primary motivation for the crime appeared to be joyriding. As Deenihan rushed through his slides, speaking at a fast, high-pressure clip while having his camera aimed at the side of his clean-shaven face, it was easy to miss what his PowerPoint actually showed: one set of data about carjacking incidents, and another about arrests. Some of the 1,127 arrests made last year were for vehicular hijacking (taking a car from someone by force, a felony) and aggravated vehicular hijacking (doing it with a weapon or when the victim is a senior citizen or a child under 16 is in the car, also a felony). But 84 percent were for criminal trespass to vehicle (being in a car without the owner’s permission, a misdemeanor). The department was showing the total arrests for all three crimes combined. From the way CPD has presented the numbers it’s not at all clear how many of the 1,127 arrests were actually related to last year’s 1,417 carjacking cases. Deenihan didn’t explain
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