“I took the photo because I thought it was very weird,” the woman said. “I sent it to my friend right away because it was like 75 degrees. Pretty out of place to have a ski mask on.”
She was right, of course, It was very weird.
Just minutes after the woman snapped this picture of the ski masked stroller near Peoria and Jackson, a man wearing a ski mask and the exact same shirt hijacked a driver about a block away.
That hijacking, on the 800 block of West Van Buren, was partially captured on video by a witness who sent it to CWB. Police said a 40-year-old man was walking away from his car when the carjacker pushed him from behind and took his keys around 7:37 p.m. They fought for control of the keys, but the hijacker won.
In the footage, you can clearly see his shirt at some points. He is also wearing a ski mask on a beautiful day.
Now, police are investigating yet another hijacking in the West Loop. This one occurred on the 300 block of North Ogden, just north of Fulton Street, around 3:30 this morning. Four hijackers reportedly beat a man up and took his black Honda CRV while he was parking near his job, according to preliminary information provided to CWBChicago.
On Saturday in the West Loop, another driver told police he was carjacked by a man who displayed a gun on the 300 block of North Green around 11:30 p.m.
CPD took 555 carjacking reports between January 1 and May 2 this year, an increase from 531 at this point last year. The period had 264 cases in 2020 and 160 in 2019, according to the city’s data portal.
In April, there were 116 reported carjackings citywide, an increase of 16%. April last year had 100 cases, April 2020 had 64, and April 2019 had 45.