Setting An Example, You See

Via pst314 in the comments, a tale of crime and punishment. Well, crime, anyway:

A man who was carjacked at gunpoint while he shovelled out a parking space in [West Town, Chicago] on Tuesday night is refusing to press charges in the case, according to Chicago police. The victim “felt sorry for them” and felt that the four people Chicago police found riding around in his freshly-hijacked Lexus have had a rough life, according to a source. He also reportedly told investigators that the hijackers probably just needed a car.

They just needed a car, while already in a car – specifically, a tan Ford Fusion. So, a second, more statusful car was needed, along with anything else of value the victim happened to have. The use to which this additional vehicle might be put does not appear to have troubled our big-hearted Lexus owner, who wishes us to know how forgiving he is, how gushing with compassion.

No charges will be filed against any of them in connection with the matter because the victim refused to prosecute, police confirmed Wednesday morning. [One of the carjackers,] John Daniels of the South Shore neighbourhood, is being detained on an outstanding warrant in a different matter.

But of course. Not the first brush with the law, then, and almost certainly not the last. Carjackers, most of whom menace their victims with firearms and/or knives, having some of the highest rates of recidivism, close to 80%, and with the stolen vehicles frequently being used to commit other serious crimes, including robbery and, very often, drive-by shootings.

And so, because of this clown’s self-imagined altruism – which is to say, his preening and moral cowardice – the armed carjackers will learn a perverse lesson about violating the law-abiding, at gunpoint, and getting away with it. They will be emboldened further and incentivised to see others as mere prey, people from whom things can be taken. And their next victims, whether of carjacking or something else, something worse, will not have figured in this man’s lofty theatre of forgiveness.