Look! (again)

Lack of enforcement leads to....more crime!

• Maeve Priestley was overcome with anxiety when she woke up early one morning and discovered the driver’s side window of her Honda Civic had been smashed out. Priestley, 26, cried outside her Lake View condo building as she assessed the damage and realized an air bag had been ripped out of her steering wheel. She didn’t know what to do, so she called her dad.

  “It’s a very violating experience,” says Priestley, a special education teacher. “I felt very panicked.”

  She was among the more than 1,200 victims of air bag thefts in Chicago in the first four months of this year. Between 2023 and 2025, there were only 70 such thefts, according to Chicago police data.

  Amid this year’s surge, the Chicago Police Department has suspended air bag theft investigations more quickly. And virtually all of the cases have gone unsolved, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of the data found.

Gee, a teacher in Lakeview was the victim of a crime - wonder how she voted.

And the Slum Times is "analyzing" the data:

• A police spokesperson says theft investigations “often take time and can be difficult to solve without video or forensic evidence.”

These Thefts can be accomplished in about thirty-seven seconds (ask us how we know!) using a rock and a box cutter - that's it. 

• no one is calling 9-1-1 during that time frame, 
• no one at 9-1-1 is picking up that call that quickly and typing up a ticket, 
• no one is dispatching that call in thirty-seven seconds (it's a Priority 3, tops)
• no one is responding in that amount of time

And if - completely by chance - an Officer stumbles on a Theft in Progress, they aren't allowed to chase, on foot or by vehicle, for a misdemeanor Theft. 

Any proposed "crackdown" by the City council is political posturing at best.