A week or so ago I complained about the increasing level of crime in my neighborhood. Here’s an example of what I was talking about from ABC 7 Chicago:
SKOKIE, Ill. (WLS) — A pair of carjackings this week in Chicago’s suburbs have police on alert.
The latest incident occurred Tuesday. Police are still looking for five suspects at the center of a crime spree that began with a stolen car in west suburban Elmhurst and then a retail theft at Old Orchard Mall in north suburban Skokie.
It was there were the suspects stole another car at gunpoint from a 13-year-old student and her mother in the Niles North High School parking lot, fled, then crashed the second vehicle and set it on fire.
Police said just before 1 p.m. they were alerted to a retail theft at the Nordstrom in Old Orchard Center. Witnesses told police they saw five males running out of the store carrying purses.
Police said those suspects got into a stolen silver Audi and tried to flee, but crashed into another vehicle on the west side of the mall.
Elmhurst police said the silver Audi had been stolen from the 800-block of North Addison Street. Police said the keys had been left in the ignition, and the owner left a loaded .380 caliber handgun in the car.
Police said the suspects abandoned the Audi and at least one ran to the parking lot of Niles North High School where they stole a Jeep at gunpoint.
“I just thought, is this real? Is this actually happening? Why did this happen to us?” said the 13-year-old girl inside the car. ABC7 Eyewitness News is protecting her identity.
The girl spoke to ABC7 with her parents about the encounter that left her shaken.
“He came up to my mom and started pulling her out of the car, telling her to get out and leave everything. He was pointing a gun at her head,” the girl said.
The girl and her mother had just left a meeting when they were met by the gunman.
“I was yelling at the guy to don’t hurt her,” she said. “I thought, is he going to kill her? Is he going to kill me?”
Police described that suspect as a black male, over 6 feet tall, with a thin build and who was bald and wearing a black coat. Police did not release descriptions of any of the other suspects.
The stolen Jeep then picked up the rest of the suspects before fleeing southbound on Interstate 94. Police found the car in a parking lot near Cicero Avenue and Peterson Avenue in Chicago, abandoned and apparently set on fire.
Destroyed in the backseat were the girl’s book bag full of school supplies and the computer she uses for class.
“He took everything that we had and just burned it all,” she said. “The only good thing is that he let me go and didn’t just kill me right there.”
The burning car was abandoned a block and a half from my house. The culprits are still at large.
That same parking lot was the scene of a carjacking a week or so ago. There had been a previous carjacking two blocks north of me. There have been several armed robberies and an increasing number of burglaries.
We pay the highest property taxes in Chicago while the values of our houses haven’t increased in 20 years.
I’ve already told you about the mismanaged road repairs in our neighborhood. I’m beginning to think that Chicago doesn’t want us. It isn’t just the taxes. It’s not receiving value for what we’re paying.
Keep an eye out for “for rent” signs, broken windows no one replaces, abandoned vehicles, when a neighborhood goes, it can pick up speed pretty quickly.
For what it’s worth, you are not alone.
When still in Naperville, we had a spate of robberies in the town. (They probably still do). Look up the East Highlands, that’s where we were. High priced RE. Thugs from the west side came right out on the Ike and 88 to sell drugs, and then helped themselves in home invasions. I once saw a car that, shall we say, didn’t look like it belonged in the area…….filled with four people who, shall we say, didn’t look like they belonged in the area. I called the police and they showed up promptly, but the car was long gone.
It’s a more generalized phenomenon. I’m not sure in our politically correct world we are serious about doing anything about it.
Do not wait for it to get bad enough to leave. Get out now. Otherwise, we are going to hear about your neighbor’s dog eating your car’s bumper.
(For the newcomers, @Icepick, AKA @…, got trapped in a declining neighborhood. His neighbor was training his dog for fighting, and @Icepick and the other neighbors had many encounters with the dog. At least once, the dog chewed up the bumper on his car.)
If you are still out there @Icepick, Merry Christmas, and the same to you @Janis Gore.
I do miss Icepick, hope he and the family are doing OK.