Maybe you thought that the farther away we got from Covid and post-George Floyd violence, the steadier and stronger would be Chicago’s recovery from the crime that plagued the city in 2020 and 2021. But a slew of year-end data show Chicago is still mired in crime. All in all, it’s a portrait of a city stuck in an abyss.
Here are the ugly stats:
Major crimes that Chicago reported to the FBI for 2022 were up 33 percent versus 2019 and 41 percent greater than 2021.
Motor vehicle theft in Chicago last year was up an astounding 139 percent compared to 2019, while theft rose 37 percent, and robbery 13 percent. Shooting incidents in Chicago were up 32 percent versus 2019.
Chicago’s 695 murders in 2022 were 14 percent less than the 804 in 2021, but still 39 percent more than the 500 in the year Mayor Lori Lightfoot took office, 2019.
And here’s an especially disturbing detail: homicides of Chicagoans 18 years old and younger reached a four-year high of 87 in 2022.
Carjackings in 2022 were up 175 percent from 2019
Carjackings have become an especially horrific and increasingly commonplace crime in Chicago, leading in some cases to murder and almost always changing forever the lives of victims, who thought they could be safe at least in their own vehicles.
And so it’s no small thing that in 2022, Chicago carjackings climbed a stark 175 percent since the benchmark pre-Covid, pre-George Floyd year of 2019. Of the city’s 1,656 vehicular hijackings – or carjackings – in 2022, 75 percent were aggravated. That means that in most such cases the perpetrator used a weapon.
The percent of carjackings classified as aggravated were higher in Chicago in 2022 than in any of the prior three years.
At the same time, the arrest rate for 2022 Chicago carjackings is just 6.5 percent, versus 9.8 percent in 2019.
Carjackings in 2022 were on track to exceed 2021’s record total but it didn’t happen because there was a likely substitution effect in the second half of the year. Motor vehicle thefts became an increasingly feasible alternative to carjackings. That’s because of the so-called “Kia Boy” phenomenon that arose last summer. Kia Boys in Chicago were guided by online videos that showed how to steal late model Kia and Hyundai vehicles with just a USB cord. That sparked a huge uptick in car thefts and likely contributed to a leveling off of car theft from the driver by force – or carjacking. But in Chicago today, that “leveling off” for 2022 still came to a near tripling of carjackings since 2019.
All told, it’s small wonder that the CEO of McDonald’s warned Lightfoot in 2022 that the city risks continuing loss of major employers to other states and cities which will aggressively recruit them based on Chicago’s widely known crime problem.
As we reported in September, CEO Chris Kemczynski said in a speech to The Economic Club of Chicago: “outsiders sense vulnerability. I’ve heard from other mayors and governors who have made their case to me for McDonald’s to relocate our headquarters to their cities and states. And if I’m getting those calls, you can be sure other Chicago companies are as well.”
Characteristically, Lightfoot attacked the messenger, saying Kempczinski should “educate himself” before speaking out.
Now, as she seeks reelection to a second term as mayor, a new campaign ad for Lightfoot continues the offensive against crime critics, calling them “haters” who fail to see she has a plan to combat the violent mayhem. But her campaign’s spin doesn’t wash. After three years of letting crime worsen on her watch, there’s ample reason to doubt the effectiveness of any new crime-busting “plan” of the mayor’s.
The beat goes on, straight into 2023
And as 2023 begins, the city remains awash in the kind of sociopathic behavior that has kept reported crime dismayingly high.
- Three teenagers were charged in a string of North Side carjackings; and carjackings continued in West Town, a thriving and upscale area of Chicago just west of the city’s downtown.
- Four were killed and three wounded Monday. Just another January weekday in Gotham.
- Armed robbers targeted senior citizens to steal their cars or other property in a dozen recent instances on the South Side, in Chicago’s communities of Pill Hill and Calumet Heights.
- Trendy Wicker Park on the near northwest side remains a magnet for miscreants with a series of armed robberies and shootings as the New Year dawns.
- Thieves targeted nine different South Side businesses in burglaries, breaking windows in some cases to gain entry.
- A bicyclist who confronted a thief attempting to steal a car in Uptown was shot by the suspect who fled in the vehicle with accomplices.
- A meal delivery driver was robbed at gunpoint and his car stolen less than a block from Mayor Lightfoot’s home in the city’s Logan Square neighborhood.
- Car thieves shot by their would-be victim then fled and were chased by police but supervisors ordered them to end the chase.
"Haters"
In her recent TV ad, Lightfoot is trying to turn the tables on critics of her failure to rein in deadly crime by using the weaponized term “haters” against them. She fails to acknowledge the real “haters” are the killers, shooters, armed robbers, armed carjackers and thieves who make Chicago an unsafe and increasingly dystopian place to be.
Now more than two years since Chicago and other cities nationwide blew up in violence after the killing of George Floyd, Chicago hasn’t made nearly enough progress in rolling back violent crime.
The city’s criminal class remains emboldened by politicized excuse-making and a lack of consequences. That’s squarely on the mayor.
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