Officials from multiple law enforcement agencies plan to meet Monday at Chicago Police Department headquarters to hammer out details of a new task force aimed at curbing the surge of carjackings in the Chicagoland area over the past year, officials said Sunday.
The task force was formally announced Sunday at the Police Department’s Shakespeare District during a news conference where Mayor Rahm Emanuel and CPD Superintendent Eddie Johnson touted the deployment of 83 new officers across the city. Johnson said the joint effort is meant to more aggressively work to arrest and prosecute carjackers but he declined to provide some details, saying he did not want to give out the “playbook” for how they would do that.
But Johnson did say that could mean seeking prosecution for carjackers through federal courts.
“We’re not playing around,” Johnson said. “If they want to continue to go out there and take the easy path to taking someone’s vehicle then we are going to take that (federal) path to punish them to the fullest extent of the law that we can.”
He noted Celinez Nunez, the special agent in charge of the Chicago Field Division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, was instrumental in putting the task force together. In addition to the ATF, the FBI and federal prosecutors plan on being involved. The task force could also examine the flow of guns being used in some of the carjackings.
Federal agencies will help Chicago police and suburban police departments identify patterns and trends to combat the rise of carjackings, Johnson said.
Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the help from federal authorities and Illinois State Police also could mean additional resources, such as helicopters, to track down robbers.
The Cook County sheriff’s office, Oak Park police and three other suburban police departments will also be part of the task force.
Prosecutors from the adult and juvenile divisions of the Cook County state’s attorney’s office are expected to collaborate with police on the issue. Teens appear to be more frequently involved in carjackings than they used to be, making it more complex to punish offenders, Johnson said.
“You can’t just give them a slap on the wrist, because when we do that then the message that we send is that we’re not serious about holding them accountable,” Johnson said about teen offenders.
He hinted at the possibility of using the Street Gang RICO Act, passed by the state legislature in 2012 and modeled after the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations statute, to go after adults who are guiding the teens in the crimes. The law was used for the first time last year in Cook County during a dramatic trial against six top-ranking Black Souls gang members.
“I was so encouraged when State’s Attorney Kim Foxx used the RICO Act late last year to hold everybody accountable for that so that’s what we are going to be talking about,” Johnson said.
Emanuel said the city had been having conversations about how to address carjackings for the past three to four months.
“There will be other things that we will be doing that are essential to making sure that while we put more police on the street, we have a coordinated effort to reduce carjackings and have a coordinated effort between the Police Department and our partners at the federal and state and local level,” Emanuel said. “And that’s not only from catching but from also prosecuting in that effort, and making sure all parts of the city are experiencing the safety that some parts of the city are experiencing.”
Sunday’s announcement came days after three teen boys allegedly tried to carjack a 54-year-old retired Chicago police officer who was unloading luggage outside a Gold Coast hotel late Friday. The retired officer was able to restrain one of the robbers with the help of good Samaritans, Johnson said. There were no weapons recovered from the boys, aged 14, 15 and 17, who were arrested in the incident. The three teens each face multiple felony charges related to the incident.
The city continues to see an increase in carjackings. There were 86 carjackings reported last month, compared with 72 in January 2017, Guglielmi said. He noted that arrests related to carjackings are increasing. Officers made 32 arrests so far this year compared with 12 arrests around this time last year, Guglielmi said.
The city recorded about 1,000 carjackings in 2017, the highest number in at least a decade, according to police statistics. There were 682 carjackings in 2016, more than double the reported counts from 2015 and 2014.
The stolen vehicles have been used in drive-by shootings, smash-and-grab burglaries and other crimes, police said. Other times the robbers might use the cars for joyriding before abandoning them.
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