Chicago police are investigating a carjacking and at least one attempted carjacking reported in the South Loop over the weekend.
In one case, a 58-year-old man was carjacked in the parking garage at Target, 1154 South Clark, around 8:28 p.m. Saturday, according to police. He told officers that he was loading purchases into his BMW 328i when two men displayed small handguns and demanded his keys, a Chicago police spokesperson said.
The victim complied, and the offenders drove away with his car, heading south on Clark Street.
Then, there were two more incidents on Sunday afternoon.
At 3:23 p.m., a driver reported that two people tried to force him out of his car in the 1800 block of South Michigan Avenue, but the carjacking failed, and the would-be robbers fled in a small black car, according to officers who responded to the scene. A CPD spokesperson said Monday that no police report was filed to document the case.
But just seven minutes later, the driver of a recently stolen small black car rear-ended another vehicle in the 1200 block of South Prairie. Two people got out of the stolen car and tried to take the other driver’s vehicle, a preliminary police report said. Once again, the hijacking failed, and the offenders fled south on Indiana Avenue.
Despite the flurry of activity in the South Loop, carjacking cases are declining this year, according to Chicago Police Department data. Through the first 12 days of March, the city had 29 hijacking cases reported, down from 56 during the same period last year and 34 in 2021. But incidents are still up compared to 2019 and 2020, which had 12 and 23 cases, respectively.