Cook County Carjacking Hotline Would Be 'Game Changer:' Sheriff Dart

SPRINGFIELD, IL — Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation that would establish hotlines intended to track vehicles stolen in carjackings and other serious crimes.

Under identical proposals filed this week in the Illinois Senate by Sen. Michael Hastings (D-Frankfort) and in the House by State Rep. Marty Moylan (D-Des Plaines), the Cook County Sheriff's Office would set up a vehicle theft recovery hotline to aid in the recovery of carjacked vehicles.

"In our county, I can tell you, there's no two issues that have been more talked about, more disturbing, than the shootings and the carjackings. Period," Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said Wednesday at a news conference with lawmakers at the Illinois State Capitol. "Those are it. And that's all people talk about, rightly so, and they're very scared and they're frustrated."

Dart said carjackings have been rising at a rate of about 30 percent a year, with more than 2,000 reported in Cook County last year — a rate of about one every four hours. Meanwhile, he said, New York City and Los Angeles had about 1,000 combined.

Carjackers run the gamut, from teens stealing cars for joyrides, thieves looking to sell cars or their parts or carjackers acquiring cars to use in carrying out additional crimes, Dart said. Only a "very small percentage" of carjackers wind up getting caught, according to the sheriff.

"A lot of it is driven by the fact that people feel that they can get away with it because very few people are being prosecuted," he said. "We only catch a very small percentage of these cases."

More than half of carjackings in Chicago are carried out by crews of experienced carjackers who often ride around in groups of four or five, Dart testified. Two members of the crew get out of a chase car, pull the victim out of their car and drive away, closely followed by the chase car. They will often then switch out the carjackers with a new driver who cannot be identified by the victim — often someone under 18, who will almost always face less severe penalties if caught by police.

Senate Bill 4205 and House Bill 5744 require manufacturers of any car sold in Illinois to establish a 24/7 hotline available to state, county and local law enforcement agencies and 911 call centers "exclusively for the purposes of law enforcement information sharing and the electronic tracking of vehicles stolen in vehicular hijacking incidents or that have been used in the commission of kidnapping, aggravated battery with a firearm, attempted homicide, or homicide."

"It's essential that we have this," said Hastings, the Senate sponsor. "This is so important. If you look at what's going on in the south suburbs and the city of Chicago, the faster we're able to tackle this issue, arrest the people who've carjacked, the better off for society and the safer society will be."

Most vehicles manufactured in recent years are already equipped with tracking devices. The bills also require carmakers to provide updates about tracking capabilities available on the cars they sell by model, year and version. According to the sheriff's office, members of the public will be able to see which cars can be tracked on its website.

Catching carjackers without access to tracking devices is currently a "crapshoot," Dart said. But with access to real-time data, officers are able to intercept and stop the car from being used for further crimes.

"Tracking is a game changer," Dart said. "This is what could bring this to an end. Are we ever going to end carjackings completely? Probably not. But can we get it back to numbers that would be understandable in any society? Yes. Not the numbers we have now."

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Dart has been in meeting for months with representatives of a trade group of car manufacturers. While individual companies, like General Motors, have been cooperative, he said, and "it's just basically they have some recalcitrant members of their group."

In December, Dart wrote to carmakers asking them to establish dedicated law enforcement hotlines and, in the longer term, to only manufacture cars that can be tracked and safely disabled using software accessible to its owner and the company. And last month, Dart testified before a U.S. Senate committee about the rise in carjackings.

In some cases, he told the committee, companies require customers to pay an upcharge to track up the car that was just stolen from them. In others, poorly trained staff demand authorities get warrants when they are "not legally relevant."

The sheriff's office currently provides a "consent to track" form that vehicle owners to permit law enforcement agencies to access location data if available after their car has been stolen. The office is also set to co-host a livestreamed anti-carjacking seminar Thursday at the Tinley Park Convention Center.

The Senate bill, which is co-sponsored by Sen. Bill Cunningham (D-Chicago) and Sen. Christopher Belt (D-Swansea) was immediately referred to the Assignments Committee after first reading, while the House bill was sent Thursday to the Rules Committee.

The proposed amendments to the Illinois Vehicle Code that would establish the vehicle theft hotlines were filed during the final week of the legislative session in Springfield, a week when members of the Democratic Party's House and Senate supermajorities promoted a series of laws relating to crime and carjackings.

On Wednesday, Democratic state senators proposed an amendment to pending legislation that would offer protections for carjacking victims who get red light and speed camera tickets after their cars have been stolen. Another aims to allow for more cooperation and state funding to cooperatives of local law enforcement agencies.

Earlier: With Cook County Carjackings Up 40%. Sheriff Wants Real-Time Tracking