Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, a Democrat, blamed a recent surge in carjackings on “unloved” youth. The remarks came after a Chicago police report revealed that over 50% of carjacking suspects were juveniles.
“There are too many young people in this room that feel unloved, and we need to change that if we are going to change the trajectory of their lives,” Lightfoot said at a town hall with Chicago youths at Harold Washington Library on Saturday. According to the Chicago Police Department, 57% of the city’s carjackings are committed by juvenile suspects.
Lightfoot added that Chicago cannot “arrest ourselves” out of crime increases, according to Fox 32. In February, The mayor blamed the uptick in crime on the district’s use of remote-learning. “We started seeing this rise in cases in 2020. And I’ll be frank and say in Chicago there was a correlation we believe between remote learning and the rise in carjackings,” Lightfoot said at the time.
To date, there have been about 433 carjackings recorded in the city. Additionally, Chicago police have made 72 vehicular hijacking arrests in 2022. There were about 425 carjackings during the same time period in 2021.
In a recent high-profile incident, the Lightfoot-appointed director of the Chicago Film Office was the victim of a carjacking. Kwame Amoaku was beaten and robbed after confronting “three kids” who were attempting to break into his car. “Thanks to all who have reached out. I’m in the ICU. I’m going to be OK,” Amoaku said in a Facebook statement.
