A 13-year-old boy was assaulted on a felony charge in connection with a car theft in November, when he allegedly stole a vehicle at gunpoint from a man in Chicago, police said on Thursday.
The teenager, whose name was not released because he was a minor, was arrested Wednesday morning by the Chicago Police Department’s Vehicle Kidnapping Task Force (CPD) and charged with a vehicular kidnapping crime aggravated with a gun. fire, the police said.
Investigators managed to relate the teenager to a car theft on November 21, 2020, when he “took a vehicle by force” from a 33-year-old man in the Wentworth area of Windy City, officials said.
Police superintendent David Brown said the boy turned 13 “the day before he put a gun to the victim’s head”.
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He is due to appear in the juvenile court on Thursday.
The arrest came just weeks after the CPD announced the creation of a task force made up of 40 police officers and four sergeants assigned to work in the force’s five detective offices, the department said.
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Car thefts increased by approximately 135% in 2020 compared to the previous year. Chicago saw more than 180% more car thefts in January than in the same month last year. The CPD recorded 218 car thefts last January – an impressive increase from the 77 reported during the same period last year, officials previously told Fox News.
Authorities said CPD prison data shows that car thieves are mostly between 15 and 20 years old, but prison records show that they are sometimes even younger.
“We are making 12-year-olds commit these acts now,” said Detective Chief Brendan Deenihan during a news conference on the subject on January 21. “And we have to do something together as a city to prevent these actions.”
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The police department’s car theft task force goes beyond just manpower to include public programs and collaboration with community groups and local, state and federal partners.
“This idea of our policemen confronting a 13- and 12-year-old boy with a gun and the most unthinkable tragedy to happen is one of our concerns, but our main concern, I want to make that clear, is with the victim,” Brown said. “And so these consequences, whether you’re young or old, have to be significant to discourage that behavior.”