A gray SUV taken in a carjacking in Chicago's Gresham area slammed into multiple vehicles on the South Side, leaving a man and a boy hospitalized and prompting police to recover a firearm at the crash scene. Police say the carjacking happened around 7:40 p.m., and the stolen SUV's driver lost control and crashed near the 8100 block of South Loomis.
Officers took a man and a male juvenile into custody after the crash, according to abc7chicago.com. The man suffered trauma from the crash and was transported to Christ Hospital in serious condition, while the juvenile suffered only minor injuries and was taken to Comer Children's Hospital in good condition. The incident was also reported by FOX 32 Chicago, which noted the Chicago Police Department described the carjacking as occurring in or near the Auburn Gresham neighborhood.
Firearm Recovered, Charges Still Pending
Investigators recovered a firearm at the scene, the same account notes, though no charges had been filed as of the latest update. Charges remain pending and area detectives are continuing to investigate exactly how the SUV ended up crashing into multiple cars on the city's South Side.
Details that remain unclear include the identity of the carjacking victim or the SUV's owner, the precise number of vehicles struck, and whether anyone inside those other vehicles was hurt.
Part of a Broader, Shifting Carjacking Picture
The Gresham crash lands amid a notably different citywide trend than the one Chicago saw just a few years ago. According to a mid-year 2026 analysis from the Council on Criminal Justice, Chicago's reported carjacking rate in the first half of 2026 was 27% lower than the same period in 2025, and 31% lower than the same stretch in 2019. The council's report, which examined offenses recorded in Chicago and 35 other American cities from 2018 through June 2026, put the city's first-half 2026 carjacking rate at 6.5 per 100,000 residents — a full 78% below the rate recorded during the same period in 2022, when carjackings peaked at 30.1 per 100,000 residents. The organization cautions that not all crimes are reported to law enforcement and that the data it compiled may still be revised by local jurisdictions.
That current downward trend stands in contrast to the surge Chicago experienced earlier in the decade. The University of Chicago Crime Lab found that Chicago saw more carjackings in 2020 than in the previous two years combined, and researchers pointed to increased youth involvement as a key driver of that spike.
Echoes of Past South Side Cases
Chases and crashes tied to carjackings have played out before on Chicago's South Side. In a 2017 case detailed by abc7chicago.com, two masked men forced a driver out of a car at gunpoint before fleeing, and the pursuit ended when the SUV crashed into a utility pole near South Wentworth Avenue and West 47th Street. In a separate South Chicago case, two 18-year-olds, Randle Archie and Mercedes Jones, were charged after an armed carjacking.
For now, Gresham-area detectives are focused on piecing together Friday evening's crash, with the investigation ongoing and no charges yet filed against the man or juvenile taken into custody.
