alt Hacker NewsHow is carjacking Kia’s fault? Kia had a problem with immobilizer anti-theft devices not being installed plus a well documented trivial way to “Hotwire” certain models. This would simply be car theft. It was a well documented (via social media) technique that lowered the skill level needed to steal a car to basically the ability to sit through a 30s TikTok.
Is it that it’s a “gateway crime” to full on carjacking? You get away with a few joy rides in a Kia and get bold enough to do an armed carjacking of someone’s SUV while they load their kids up in the alley garage?
Carjacking is up there with murder for “scary” urban crime because it’s violent and anyone can imagine being a victim. Having your car stolen off the street overnight doesn’t really elicit the same visceral response.
Add in the CPDs general “no chase” policy (mostly a good thing for harm reduction) plus a bunch of largely juveniles posting on social media the dangerous driving stunts they were pulling on social media to really amp up the fear and outrage. Even if it were mostly for show, no prosecutor is going to survive an election if they come across as soft on that style of crime.
Carjacking relies on burner cars; they drive up near victims, 2 people get out and rush the car, and then both cars speed off. Carjackers (at least in Chicagoland) don't generally post up in parking lots waiting for victims; they're highly mobile.
(I have two carjackings on camera from behind my old house, where we had a Nest camera. One thing I learned from that: anybody who thinks carrying a firearm is a realistic defense against a carjacking is in fantasyland. You don't get even a split second to react; the encounter begins with a gun in your face.)
No-chase is absolutely the right policy for a dense urban area. Every once in awhile where I live we get trustee candidates promising to bring chases back, and I have to wonder what they're smoking.