A Cook County judge was carjacked at gunpoint along with her 3-year-old son late Thursday in Humboldt Park.
Judge Anna Loftus was robbed of her 2018 Subaru Crosstrek, her purse and a cellphone, according to a memo shared with 14th District Chicago police officers. No one was physically hurt.
The toddler was in the back seat as the 52-year-old pulled the vehicle into a residential garage about 11:30 p.m., according to police news affairs.
That’s when two males walked up, and one of them, carrying a gun, ordered her and the boy out of the car.
They complied, and the carjackers took off in the blue vehicle, police said. No one was in custody Friday afternoon.
The internal CPD memo identified Loftus as the carjacking victim and the boy as her son. The stolen vehicle was last seen near the intersection of Jackson Street and Hamlin Boulevard.
One carjacker put a gun to Loftus’ head, according to a recording of emergency dispatches broadcast on police radio shortly after the encounter, which happened in an alley. The carjackers were described as being in their “late teens.”
Loftus is a judge in the Chancery Division of the Circuit Court of Cook County. She was first appointed to the bench in 2014 and won her 2016 election bid as a Democrat.
A circuit court spokesperson could not immediately provide more details about the carjacking.
It came 10 days after Illinois Senate Majority Leader Kimberly Lightford and her husband, Eric McKennie, were carjacked in Broadview. Three masked gunmen driving a Dodge Durango SUV stole Lightford’s 2018 Mercedes SUV as Lightford and McKennie were dropping off a friend about 9:45 p.m. Dec. 21.
As of early December, there were 1,971 carjacking victims in Chicago — 27% more than the same period of 2020 and more than one-and-a-half times the number in 2019, according to city crime data.
The West Side is the worst part of Chicago for carjackings, but no part of the city is immune from the robberies, which also are rampant in some suburbs.
