Armed kids as young as 10 carjack more than a dozen people since June: police
Alyssa Blanchard was so traumatized after being carjacked at gunpoint last week outside her Calumet Heights home that she’s now scared to go outside.
Chicago police say a group of children, ages 10 to 17, have carjacked Blanchard and at least 15 other people since late June — wreaking havoc on Blanchard’s generally peaceful South Side neighborhood.
Police said shots were fired by the suspects in two of the carjackings, but no one was hit.
“I’m scared to use my garage. I don’t feel safe in my neighborhood,” said Blanchard, an elementary school teacher at Chicago Public Schools.
What’s especially painful for Blanchard was seeing her stolen BMW used the next day to carjack a woman in the parking lot of Trinity Hospital, a few blocks from her home, she said.
“I don’t want to have to tell my kid about how some young woman was killed or shot with kids using my vehicle. It was traumatizing,” Blanchard, 44, said.
Blanchard was carjacked July 14 while returning home in the early evening. As she pulled into her alley garage on South Kingston Avenue, she noticed a vehicle and three or four children come toward her.
Two children armed with handguns pointed them at her head and ordered her out of her BMW, she said. One looked as young as 11, she said.
“It was so instantaneous . . . I was just scared for my life. I thought, ‘This is it,’ ” she said.
They took her purse, which had about $300 inside, jumped inside her BMW and drove off, she said.
Blanchard said the children used her BMW the next day to carjack a woman in the parking lot of Trinity Hospital. In that carjacking, a 21-year-old was seated in her Lexus when four or five teens exited a BMW, two of them confronting her with guns, police said.
Two teens forced her to the ground outside the car, but she grabbed onto a door handle and held on until the teens drove off, police said. The woman was treated for a foot injury.
Blanchard said police recovered her BMW, which had been crashed a couple of days after the carjacking.
Blanchard said she was dismayed to see children involved in this type of crime.
“I teach this age group, and I can’t believe they would do this,” she said.
Police published a community alert Sunday evening warning of 14 other carjackings tied to the children.
† June 23, 7200 block of S. Champlain Ave.; † July 9, 8000 block of S. Indiana Ave.; † Wednesday, 8700 block of S. Stony Island Ave.;
† Wednesday, 7500 block of S. Wabash Ave.; † Thursday, 9100 block of S. Essex Ave.; † Thursday, 7300 block of S. Chappel Ave.; † Friday, 8800 block of S. Luella Ave.; † Friday, 8900 block of S. Euclid Ave.; † Friday, 9100 block of S. Jeffery Ave.; † Saturday, 9100 block of S. Euclid Ave.; † Saturday, 8600 block of S. Constance Ave.; † Saturday, 9300 block of S. Paxton Ave.; † Saturday, 9300 block of S. Essex Ave.; † Saturday, 1600 block of E. 92nd Place; † Saturday, 8100 block of S. Indiana Ave. Anyone with information is asked to call CPD at (312) 745-4489.
WASHINGTON — Democrat Joe Biden said Monday that he is getting extensive briefings from lawyers vetting candidates for vice president and plans to have “personal discussions” with his final choices for running mate.
The presumptive presidential nominee said on MSNBC’s “The ReidOut” that he is getting a “two-hour vetting report” on his VP contenders. He said they’ve gone through “about four candidates” so far.
He said once the vetting is done, he will narrow the list and then have a conversation with each of the remaining candidates.
The former vice president has pledged to choose a woman as his running mate and has said he’ll name her before the Democratic National Convention, which begins Aug. 17.
Biden has been under some pressure to choose a Black woman in a nod to the constituency’s role as the most dependable Democratic voters. He would not commit Monday to selecting a Black woman when asked on MSNBC, saying only: “I am not committed to naming any but the people I have named, and among them there are four Black women. So that decision is underway right now.”
Among the Black women Biden is believed to be considering are California Sen. Kamala Harris, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Florida Rep. Val Demings, California Rep. Karen Bass and former Obama administration official Susan Rice.