‘Sad state of affairs’: Chicago police chief reveals they have arrested boy, 11, over carjacking and believe he is ‘prolific’ offender responsible for a string of similar crimes in the city
Chicago's police chief has revealed officers have arrested an 11-year-old boy on suspicion of carjacking.
Superintendent David Brown said cops believe the boy is a 'prolific' offender responsible for a string of similar crimes in the city.
He branded the arrest a 'sad state of affairs', adding the child, who has been arrested before, was charged with one felony count of aggravated vehicular hijacking with a firearm.
Cops believe the 11-year-old robbed a police sergeant's wife at gunpoint in the parking lot of a Jewel Osco in the 4700 block of North Cumberland around 7:45am on November 14.
The car, a 2021 BMW SUV, was found several hours after the alleged carjacking on the city's South Side.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot described the arrest as evidence of a 'crisis' and said she would meet with juvenile judges to address the issue. It comes amid a wider surge in crime in Chicago, and across the US.
Chicago's police chief Superintendent David Brown has revealed officers have arrested an 11-year-old boy on suspicion of carjacking and said they believe he is a 'prolific' offender responsible for a string of similar crimes in the city
Cops believe the 11-year-old robbed a police sergeant's wife at gunpoint in the parking lot of a Jewel Osco (pictured) in the 4700 block of North Cumberland around 7:45am on November 14
The car, a 2021 BMW SUV, (stock image) was found several hours after the alleged carjacking on Chicago's South Side
Chicago Chief of Detectives Brendan Deenihan said it appeared the 11-year-old was 'driving these carjackings,' and that he was under investigation for several similar cases around the city.
'So he's not just there, I guess, along for the ride with other individuals,' Deenihan said.
Lightfoot said: 'We have a crisis and it's a crisis that they have to own some responsibility for. We cannot keep putting these kids back out on the streets with no support, no resources, no monitoring.'
The Chicago mayor has come under fire for the way she has dealt with crime after she publicly backed the 'defund the police' movement and proposed slashing $59million from the CPD budget, or 3.3percent, and 600 vacant positions from the department, amid Black Lives Matter protests throughout the summer of 2020.
Lighfoot backtracked in August after police officer Ella French was shot dead while policing a traffic stop.
Her death was the first fatal shooting of a Chicago officer in the line of duty since Lightfoot took office and the first female officer fatally shot on the job there in 33 years.
Following the August killing, Lightfoot unveiled a new plan to 'refund the police' which lifted the Chicago Police Department's annual budget from $1.7billion to $1.9billion.
But about two weeks after the tragedy, over Labor Day weekend, Chicago was swept by another wave of violent crime that saw a four year-old boy die after he was shot twice in the head through a window of his dad's home while he slept.
Elsewhere in the city, seven other children were among those injured in shootings over the holiday weekend, outraging residents citywide.
Despite publicly supporting calls to 'defund the police', Chicago Mayor Lightfoot backtracked in August after the death of officer Ella French and proposed a new plan to 'refund the police'
Police Officer Ella French died after she was shot during a traffic stop in Chicago in August 2021
Lightfoot has since denounced the 'defund the police' movement, but Chicago's police union still issued a vote of 'no confidence' in the mayor.
She is also at odds with police over a jab mandate that last month saw nearly 50 per cent of the force threatened with unpaid leave if they failed to declare their vaccinations status.
Violent crimes are up across the board in the Windy City. Since 2019, murders are up a whopping 59 per cent. Nearly 300 additional murders were committed in 2021 than in 2019.
The pandemic also inspired an influx of crime. Since 2020, murders are up by four percent. Violent assaults are also up, with over 200 more cases of aggravated battery taking place this year than in 2019, before the pandemic - with just over one month left to go.
Meanwhile sexual assaults and rapes are up by more than 27 per cent in the past year.
Yet gun violence is arguably the city's most pressing issue - with 1,606 people shot in this past summer alone - the population equivalent to many American small towns.
From June to August this year 261 Chicago citizens were killed, on pace to be the deadliest stretch in nearly a quarter-century for the city. In Chicago, fatal shootings accounted for 94 percent of all homicides so far this year - compared to the still-dismal 90 per cent in 2020.
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