Cook County carjackings on pace to be the worst in 2 decades

There have been nearly 1,400 carjacking victims this year in Chicago and the rest of Cook County, more than 115 of them in the suburbs.

It's a carjacking crisis, with the county on pace to see more carjackings this year than it has in two decades. Through the end of September, there were 43.5% more carjackings countywide this year than in the same period last year, when carjackings also were way up over the year before.

In the face of the rise in carjackings, the Chicago Police Department formed a task force in March that includes the Cook County sheriff's office, the Illinois State Police, the FBI and suburban police departments.

As a part of that effort, the sheriff's office has created a database allowing suburban departments to share information about carjackings with the task force, making it easier to spot patterns that go beyond any single jurisdiction and to help deploy officers better to fight the problem, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart says.

Before, Dart says, "Every town had their own data. You had no idea what was going on in the town next to you."

Now, he says, "We're putting the puzzle together."

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