Mayor Johnson, CPD outline strategy to address and prevent robberies in Chicago

CHICAGO — Mayor Brandon Johnson along with city leaders and police outlined Friday its strategies on slowing and preventing robberies throughout the city.

While the city has seen some success when it comes to bringing down homicides and shootings, robberies continue to be a problem.

Smash-and-grabs and other robberies continue to be an issue for the city. Crews, usually working with three or four other suspects, will use a car to smash into a high-end store and grab whatever merchandise they can.

Many times, they have two or three vehicles waiting as getaway cars. Robbery crews have also used stolen vehicles to drive up and down city streets, looking for people who are walking. The people inside those vehicles will usually jump out, armed with weapons, and steal whatever they can.

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Recently, the plumbing profession has been a target of these crews because of the expensive equipment they carry with them.

So far this year, Chicago police report nearly 2200 robberies — that’s just slightly up from where the city was last year and in 2022. But it’s nearly a 30% increase in robberies when compared to 2021.

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