Chicago's Carjackings and Chaos: Coming To Your Town?

Do not look away. Do not assume the problems that plague Chicago will remain there

Iconic poet Carl Sandburg captured the essence of Chicago over a century ago in the verses of his famous work, “Chicago.” His powerful metaphors persist to this day for my former hometown, the “city of the big shoulders,” the “hog butcher for the world,” always “stormy, husky, brawling.”

But the famed poet also described the unsavory underbelly of this metropolis: “And they tell me you are crooked, and I answer: Yes, it is true...”

Neither crookedness nor violence are at all new to Chicago. Yet, the degree of degradation in recent years, as the Windy City descends into chaos, would shock even Sandburg and should serve as a dire warning for all of America for the future nationwide that Leftist policies will actuate.

The absurdity of Chicago’s madness and street terror was recently highlighted by a crime sequence that was both frightening and funny.  This weekend in Chicago court, prosecutor Leonore Carlson detailed serious charges against 18-year-old Dejon Herring, stating that the violent young offender and two accomplices held up a man at gunpoint on the city’s CTA “L” train as the victim headed to work at 8am in the morning. After robbing the man, Chicago crime website CWB reports that “they gave the victim a switchblade.” The prosecutor relays that the perpetrators “recommended the victim use this knife to protect himself to avoid being robbed again.”

Now, let’s give these bad guys a modicum of respect for having the decency to provide a useful parting gift to the man they just terrorized! Truth be told, weapons should almost be required to travel on Chicago’s public transit, where crime in 2022 already 17% higher year-to-date when compared to the already dreadful CTA system crime rates of 2021 at this point.

Of course, there is nothing at all humorous about the chaos that engulfs Chicago, although Mayor Lori Lightfoot and other incompetent and corrupt Chicago officials do make laughable attempts to divert blame and excuse away a city that devolves into a Third World-like reality of violent streets and devastating death tolls. For example, Lightfoot clownishly insists on bragging recently about the body count of Chicago declining slightly from the insanity of last year’s violence.

Yes, homicides are slightly off the combat-like pace of 2021, but let’s look at the actual data in context. So far in 2022, 128 Chicagoans have been murdered, with 582 total shootings. Almost all the victims are young black males. For comparison, New York City - which has over 3 times the population of Chicago - has far fewer murders year-to-date, and total shootings in the Big Apple are less than half the level of Chicago’s death toll.

By one dreadful measure, 2022 far exceeds the carnage of 2021: carjackings. This ominous new trend in Chicago represents a whole new wave of street thuggery and makes every driver understandably anxious about the simplest tasks of life in Chicago. These shocking crimes explode at all hours and in all neighborhoods of the city, and so far the 433 total Chicago carjackings exceed last year’s pace, with only 72 arrests so far for these violent assaults.