Have more federal charges for carjacking crimes help to cut the numbers down?
CHICAGO (CBS) -- More than a year ago, the feds vowed to try to help solve Chicago's carjacking nightmare, by charging more cases in federal court.
CBS 2 Investigator Megan Hickey from the Dirksen Federal Building where an 18-year-old was charged with carjacking a Lyft driver at gunpoint.
His case is one of a growing number of carjacking cases being handled by the feds. Back at the beginning of 2021, CBS 2 spoke with the US attorney here and the FBI Special Agent in Charge.
Both said they were going to go after more carjackers federally. And the data shows that they've been making good on that promise.
"I think it's pretty clear to say that we've seen kind of a level of brazenness from into this year that you know we really haven't seen in the past in the same way," said John Lausch, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District Illinois
That was back in January of 2021. The carjacking problem in Chicago has only gotten worse.
One recent example: A woman was carjacked at gunpoint late Monday night in Hyde Park, leading to a chase along the Dan Ryan Expressway.
According to data from CBS Chicago's Carjacking Tracker, there have been 868 carjackings so far this year. That's compared to 814 during the same period last year.
US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John Lausch and FBI Special Agent in Charge Emmerson Buie
"Carjackings are crimes of opportunity."
They said they were going to put more resources towards carjackings, including more FBI agents. And according court records, it may have worked.
While just two carjacking cases were charged federally in 2020, in 2021 there were eight cases and nine total defendants. So far this year, there have been three cases and four defendants, including 18-year-old Noah Ransom, who stole a Lexus from a Lyft driver in April.
He'd already been charged at the state level.
"The federal charges really do provide for much stiffer penalties than most of these defendants would receive in the state system," said former federal and state prosecutor Steven Block.
Former federal and state prosecutor Steven Block said the uptick is encouraging, but he doesn't think it will put a significant dent in the climbing number of cases.
"We still have to be asking ourselves why our young people, they're usually young people, out with guns sticking people up to take their cars. That's a question we have to keep asking ourselves and a federal case now and again, is not going to solve that problem," he said.
Block said one of the issues federal charges wont make a huge dent is because they typically don't charge juveniles. More than half of CPD's carjacking arrests in 2020, for example, were kids under the age of 18.
