Happy Holidays. That’s what crews of holiday hold-up artists are thinking in Chicago as they stick up scores of people, relieving them of their valuables, particularly in the decent parts of town. Vehicular-borne bad guys ride around in stolen cars and swarm their targets with alarming regularity. They’ve hit almost 80 times in the last week or so, and those are just the reported robberies.
The short-handed Chicago Police Department issued community alerts, but those are about as useful in protecting residents as a sternly-worded letter from the United Nations. The bad guys continue to ply their trade pretty much with impunity.
Chicago Police make arrests in just 5.8% of serious crimes. When you factor in a 60% decline in reported crimes over the past twenty years, that would suggest that CPD solves well under 4% of the most serious crimes committed and only about 7.7% of all crimes.
So thugs in Chicago really don’t worry about the police. Not only do they know the odds of getting caught by a department that are prohibited from chasing stolen cars or fleeing suspects (even pursuits of murder suspects where police have seen the murder take place) is extremely low, they know the local prosecutor oftentimes simply won’t prosecute them.
That relegates tax-paying, law-abiding people to nearly helpless victim status. CWB has the latest about the exploding numbers of holdups in the holiday season.
Nearly 40 people have been robbed since Friday by armed holdup crews prowling the city’s near west and north sides. Five victims were targeted Sunday evening in the West Loop and West Town.
Chicago police have issued community alerts about some of the crimes, which a source said likely involve at least two robbery crews. Still, the holdups continue, and some of the robberies are becoming more violent. There have been no arrests announced.
Forty armed robberies and not a single arrest.
On Friday evening, seven women were robbed, and another was carjacked during a crime spree in Wicker Park, Bucktown, and West Town. At least fourteen people were robbed during a two-hour crime wave that stretched from the Lower West Side to Irving Park on Friday morning.
On November 25, at least nine robberies were reported during daylight robbery sprees in West Town and West Ridge. Four days earlier, three similar robberies were reported in Humboldt Park, Wicker Park, and Logan Square.
Chicago’s notorious crime situation is quickly spiraling out of control. It’s edging toward the point where many victims may begin to administer their own brand of justice if they know who victimized them.
After all, the public knows how few criminals the CPD arrests, too. If cops only catch the bad guys 3.8% of the time, that means there’s also only a 3.8% chance that they’ll catch up to someone who decides to administer some street justice.
“Almost” without consequences.
A CCW holder took out an entire robbery crew one morning. While in his work truck, an 18-year-old punk stuck a .45 with an extended magazine in his face and demanded everything.
The working man, who had a CCW in his back pocket, handled it like a pro, disarming the punk and after drawing his own piece, he shot the robber in the shoulder. Then when two 15-year-old accomplices came to help, the CCW shot one of them as well. Oh yeah, and the getaway driver? He got one in the grape. That caused Mr. Bad Headache to run over the fourth member of the quartet’s legs, giving him a compound fracture.
People with compound leg fractures can’t run (or even limp) very quickly away from police.
Do you need a tissue yet?
Cops made some arrests of the bad guys.
Then there was another guy this past weekend that went out to find a guy in his fancy ride outside of a hotel in downtown Chicago. Nearby, an SUV with three other bad guy co-conspirators started shooting at the man. He drew his licensed CCW pistol and did the only polite thing. He shot back.
The card-carrying good guy hit all three of the three robbers in the SUV. Meanwhile the mope in his car took off running in such a hurry that he left his phone behind, along with his little computer used to steal cars. We reckon he really didn’t want to get perforated.
CWB has the humorous after action report on the incident… Including the arrest of two guys, both shot in their respective butts by the CCW holder:
Chicago — Two men who were shot by a concealed carry holder as they allegedly tried to steal his car in downtown Chicago over the weekend were charged with felonies on Monday.
Prosecutors said one of the accused men, who had been shot in the buttocks, ran from the scene and tried to get help from two women by dropping his pants and showing them the bullet hole in his butt.
LOL. That’s one way to ask for a date…
It all started when the concealed carry holder prepared to leave the Cambria Hotel, 32 West Randolph, around 3:40 a.m. Saturday, prosecutor Sarah Dale-Schmidt said. The victim started his black 2020 Dodge Charger with his key fob as he headed out of the hotel…
The Jeep nearly struck the concealed carry holder as it sped from the scene, and he fired three more rounds, according to Dale-Schmidt. At the same time, the victim saw another man get out of his Dodge Charger, drop a small computer used to steal cars, and then run away, Dale-Schmidt said.
Shortly after the gunfire, surveillance cameras at Northwestern Memorial Hospital recorded Deangelo Webb, 26, tossing two items from the red Jeep as he arrived at the hospital emergency entrance, said Dale-Schmidt. Webb had a gunshot wound to his knee, and the two items he threw were loaded ammunition magazines, according to Dale-Schmidt.
And then there was another crew who ran from police… right into a city truck that burst into flames. It’s a shame they weren’t properly restrained by seatbelts.
Chicago — A carload of suspected armed robbers committed a series of holdups in Bucktown and the North Side, then crashed into a truck in Lincoln Square as Chicago police officers closed in on them Monday morning. Four suspects are in custody after running from the flaming wreckage, and police recovered three firearms, according to CPD.
The robberies and crash occurred in the same areas where more than 70 people have been robbed at gunpoint since December 2 during almost daily crime waves.
So three of the robbery crews have been taken out by themselves or by CCW holders.
Three down, who knows how many more to go.
Be careful out there.