Today's Lesson: Carjacking in Chicago

 The article in question is "Terrifying moment driver is carjacked by a coordinated gang of armed men driving SUVs in Democrat-led Chicago - as motor vehicle theft skyrockets 90% in just one year in crime-plagued city." The article includes a video of a recent carjacking in Chicago. I'll just copy the written description from the article, but you should watch it to see the coordination between 5 or 6 men in two vehicles. It was all over in about a minute and a half. 

    The clip shows a 2013 Audi A4 parked on the highway at night with its headlights on.

    Two more vehicles rapidly approach before coming to a halt at the front and rear end of the vehicle, hemming it in. 

Note that they didn't come up from behind the parked vehicle, but from the other direction so they could simply pull in almost perpendicular ahead and behind the vehicle. I say "almost" because it was more like a V shape around the other vehicle so the criminals could more easily escape if necessary. Continuing:

    The Audi rolls forward in the beginnings of an attempt to escape, but within seconds three men leap from the surrounding vehicles and approach the driver. 

    One points a gun at his side window while two more drag him out of the car and throw him on the ground. 

    An attacker ties the man's hands behind his back as he lay face-down on the highway, while the accomplices enter his car. 

    The victim watches on helplessly as the men skirt around him in their vehicles, before all three rapidly drive away. 

    Scrambling for his life, the victim makes a break for it once his attackers are safely out of view. 

The victim was "scrambling for his life" because he had been left in the middle of the street and could have easily been run over by another car.

    The article also notes that "Chicago Police told DailyMail.com they did not receive any reports about the incident, which happened on the 1700 block of North Western on September 2." I don't know what to make of this: there are a lot of crimes that go unreported, but generally to collect on insurance for theft you need to file a police report. It is possible that the victim called it in (or tried to) and the police simply lost the report or never responded. In that regard, the article also relates:

    The horrifying footage was captured on a night when eight people were robbed over a 30 minute spree in the same neighborhood, according to local reports. 

    No arrests were made for any of the crimes, per local news, including some which involved armed break-ins.

    Chicago Police told DailyMail.com it deals with 'a vast volume of crimes on a daily basis'.  

    The Windy City has suffered an 86 per cent rise in motor vehicle theft rates over the last year - from 42,512 incidents reported in 2022 to 54,983 so far this year.  

Well, more than that because this story is about an incident that didn't make it into the crime statistics.

    A few points: 

• Jon Low likes to relate John Farnam's rules of self-protection: 

1.      Don’t go to stupid places.  
2.      Don’t associate with stupid people.  
3.      Don’t do stupid things.  
4.      Be in bed by 10:00 PM.  (Your own bed!)  
5.      Don’t look like a freak.  
6.      Don’t fail the attitude test. 

I don't know if the victim violated Rule #1, but based on how dark it was, I would guess that he violated Rule #4. I would also suggest that sitting on the side of the road in a running car in a high crime area violated Rule #3.

•  The driver sort of just sat there. When someone pulls in front of you and behind you like that, it spells no good. Although the driver made a half-hearted attempt to pull forward to try to get in front of the car in front (which had left a bit too much room, which was quickly corrected), he stopped. It looks like if the victim had driven up onto the curb, he would have had enough space to drive; and if the criminals had pulled up over the curb it would have broken their V formation making it even easier for the victim to escape. I wasn't there, so perhaps the curbs were too high to even make the attempt.
• Another thought was that even after the car in front of him had pulled slightly forward to block out that escape route, there was still considerable room--perhaps enough that he could have aimed for the right front fender and forced the criminal's car far enough out of the way to get by. He was going to lose his car anyway, so what's some body damage?

Let me know your thoughts on the matter.