The Chicago Police Department is racing to address a growing carjacking pandemic within the city, and in addition to afternoon workshops for at-risk youth, it appears they are now ordering select tactical teams to pump gas for city residents at select gas stations participating in “Operation Safe Pump.”
CWB Chicago reports that a Chicago PD deputy chief ordered CPD tactical teams in his district to “combat carjackings” by having “their tactical teams pump gas for senior citizens.”
“Tuesday night, an email surfaced in which CPD Deputy Chief Ernest Cato, the head of patrol for the department’s West Side districts, ordered tactical units under his command ‘bring some security to motorist (sic) during this crisis of vehicular hijacking’ by pumping gas for senior citizens,” according to the outlet.
“Each district should assign two tact cars to a gas station for 30 minutes to one hour and pump gas for senior citizens,” Cato wrote in his memo.
Tactical teams, CWB notes, are CPD’s front-line defense in handling in-progress and violent crime and community service is not typically on their list of priorities. Last week, though, the Chicago Sun-Times reported, the Chicago Police Department announced a partnership with “Operation Safe Pump,” a program that organizes gas stations and private security to create “safe” times and spaces so that Chicago citizens who live on the city’s south and west sides can refill their fuel tanks without fear of losing their vehicles in the process.
There’s one major problem: the “epidemic” of carjackings is not limited to the city’s southern and western neighborhoods, and most carjackings are not taking place at service stations.
“According to CPD data,” CWB notes, “Chicago recorded 218 carjackings in January — but only nine of those took place at gas stations. And only 86 of last year’s 1,416 carjackings unfolded at service stations, records show.”
The carjacking epidemic has other unique characteristics. Most notably, many of the latest CPD carjacking suspects are teenagers, per Chicago’s WGN. “According to officials, the suspects range in age from 15 to 20, but the youngest they have seen was 12 years old. The motives include joyriding and using the cars to commit other crimes such as robberies.”
That’s part of a national trend, according to ABC News, which notes that a number of cities apart from Chicago are also experiencing a dramatic uptick in the number of carjackings. Experts seem to believe the coronavirus pandemic is to blame. A would-be carjacker wearing a mask does not stand out in a city environment, and young adults who are not in school but whose parents work are being left with little to do all day.
“The social service sector has ground to a halt,” one expert told the network. “People can’t do in-person contact. Kids are out of school and don’t have programming to go to.”
And then, there’s the summer’s “defund the police” movement which, one expert told ABC, created “real uncertainty around what police are expected or allowed to do.”
With police tuning out and juvenile offenders given ample opportunity, the result, the same exert said, is a “perfect storm.”
The Chicago Police Department says its working on solutions.
“CPD plans to to add enough staff so there can be a dedicated carjacking team in each of the five detective divisions throughout the city,” Chicago police told WGN. “The department said they’re also working the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office to focus on stronger prosecution.”