Execution Under Pressure: The Procedural Tactics of Carjacking & Reliance on Situational Awareness
Introduction
In the first part of our three-part series on carjacking (Part 1: Perceptual Skills Carjackers Use in Identifying Targets), we explored the perceptual expertise carjackers employ to assess potential targets. Now, we shift our focus to the procedural methods and skill sets they utilize. Carjacking, a crime that merges auto-theft with robbery, emerges as an urban plague, demanding exceptional skills from the offender. In this high-stakes, time-sensitive scenario, the ability to swiftly identify and exploit opportunities while navigating hurdles is not merely beneficial—it's essential.
Carjacking, a blend of motor vehicle theft and robbery, emerges as one of the more drastic forms of urban crime, requiring distinct expertise under high-pressure situations. Contrary to traditional criminological views that regard criminal behavior as low-skilled, a deeper examination reveals the perceptual and procedural expertise integral to successful carjackings.
This post illuminates the procedural strategies carjackers use to seize opportunities and overcome challenges. It also examines how situational awareness factors into the expertise required for carjacking. Unlike perceptual knowledge, procedural knowledge concerns the physical execution of the carjacking. Here, the offender's ability to manage logistics, from crafting approach strategies to ensuring quick getaways, is paramount. Successful carjackers demonstrate a profound level of decision-making prowess, optimizing efficiency while minimizing the risk of confrontation or capture.
After selecting a target, the carjacker proceeds to execute the crime, which includes approaching the vehicle and commandeering it. Once the vehicle is under the offender's control, the focus shifts to escaping the scene, utilizing the vehicle for their purposes, and ultimately disposing of it. In this discussion, our primary focus is on the targeting (choosing a vehicle) and enactment (commandeering the vehicle) stages. These phases most starkly reveal the carjacker's application of perceptual and procedural skills, with today's topic centering on procedural skills.
Mastery of Execution: Procedural Skills in Carjacking
The real world imposes strategic limitations, challenges, and unfolds opportunities for the carjacker. It's essential for potential offenders to weigh the spatial logistics of their intended crime heavily. As described by one offender, "You can have the right car and the right driver, but if you're not in the right place, there's no carjacking happening. You need to see that you in the right place to make it."
Procedural skills are rooted in the "how-to" aspects of the crime. Once a carjacker identifies a target with their perceptual expertise, they must quickly leverage their procedural knowledge to assert control over the vehicle. This dimension of criminal skill underscores the offender's competency in orchestrating the physical execution of a carjacking—from managing the victim to operating the vehicle.
Recent studies in criminology emphasize that this is far from the work of a novice; it demands a form of professionalism within the realm of criminal activity. The strategic moves and logical progression of actions by carjackers demonstrate the level of advanced expertise this crime necessitates.
In the Moment: Execution Under Extreme Pressure
Carjackers operate in an environment where intense pressure and urgency are the norms, not exceptions. Unlike many other crimes, the mobility of their targets forces them to make precise and decisive actions swiftly. This level of urgency requires an unrivaled aptitude for making critical decisions in the blink of an eye, demonstrating their exceptional procedural knowledge. In addition, carjackers must exhibit an extraordinary ability to improvise, adjusting their tactics in real-time as situations evolve. Their tactical savvy in managing risks is heightened by the need for a flexible mindset to navigate this unpredictable 'profession', often relying on a personal code and contingency plans to avoid detection or arrest.
Enactment: Approaching and Commandeering the Target
Of course, perceiving the optimal car, driver, and physical space for committing a carjacking is only half the story. The other half is knowing how to take a vehicle. Perceptual skills are a necessary precursor to procedural skills. Without them, targeting would be haphazard, making the outcome far less predictable. But knowing how to take a car is just as critical to success. It is within procedural expertise that we see the application of the normalcy and blitz techniques highlighted later in this post. In the words of Pac, "You can know what car to take, but if you don't know how to take it, you will get your ass killed or arrested every time."
Carjackers and other street offenders develop procedural skills over time that allow them to engage in their crimes with little or no hesitation. Over time they have acquired sophisticated scripts that can be accessed at a moment's notice, thereby allowing them to offend without having to pause to "think the offense through."
This is especially important for a crime like carjacking, which requires would-be offenders to make almost instantaneous decisions. After all, with the change of a traffic light, a potential carjacking prospect can be lost forever. As Black put it, "Carjacking is a challenge. You ain't got time to think. They can just speed off. You better know what car to take and how to take it. You better know how to deal with a driver. Because a car is there and then someone hit the gas and its gone man. It takes skills to take a car." Speaking to carjackers revealed just how important such skills were.
A Study on Carjacking Techniques
Approaching the Vehicle: Normalcy Portrayals and Blitzes
The enactment of a carjacking begins with how the perpetrator approaches the prospective target, primarily through these two methodologies: Normalcy Portrayals and Blitzes. These strategies are pivotal, setting the stage for the attempted crime.
Normalcy Portrayals
This method involves the offender blending in with their surroundings to avoid raising suspicion. By adopting the guise of normalcy, the carjacker aims to close the distance to the target vehicle without alarming the driver. This approach hinges on the element of surprise, leveraging the perceived harmlessness of the carjacker until the moment of action.
Blitzes
Contrastingly, blitzes deploy overt aggression and speed. This approach does not rely on subterfuge but rather on overwhelming the target quickly before a response can be mounted. A blitz might involve sprinting toward the vehicle and using force or the threat thereof to command quick control. This method banks on shock and speed, ensuring that the carjacker exploits the brief window of opportunity with immediate action.
These approaches, Normalcy Portrayals and Blitzes, represent the dichotomy in carjacking techniques—either disguising intent until the last possible moment or relying on swift, unequivocal aggression to achieve the same end.
Both techniques are designed to allow the carjacker to gain close physical proximity with the victim without causing them to flee, defend themselves, or otherwise resist. Most importantly, these techniques are designed to create access to victims in as little time as possible, thus limiting the window of opportunity for a potential victim to resist or flee. "Normalcy illusions sacrifice celerity for more certain entrapment, while blitzes embrace celerity to enhance the certainty of entrapment through shock and force."
A normalcy portrayal involves an offender acting as though he or she is engaging in a non-threatening task to gain proximity to the potential victim without unduly raising that individual's concern. Normalcy illusions are the modal technique of carjackers. Sleazy-E recounted, for instance, "walked up behind her and say, 'Excuse me. Can you give me the time?' ... I made her thought I was catching a bus . . . And she looked up to look at the time ... And she turned around to look at her watch. I snatched the keys out of her hand and opened the door and I push her down."
Another offender recounted, "The victim parked as he was going to a barbershop or something like that. ... [When he came out,] I ask him for a cigarette ... Most of the time it's the same trick. Go to the passenger side. Take his attention to the passenger side. 'Hey, let me get a cigarette,' something like that. While he is looking [the victim says,] 'I ain't got no cigarette on me.' Next thing you know, [with my gun, I say] 'get out the car. Get out the car.'"
In addition to getting the jump on victims, another potential benefit of enacting normalcy is that it reduces unwanted attention from bystanders who, if alerted, may try directly or indirectly to intervene. In this way, the normalcy illusion allowed offenders to manage and keep a low profile with the intended victim as well as those who may interfere with the offense in some way.
"How did I get him? Walk up to the window [late at night], open the door, passenger side . . . Just mosey on around, stoop down low and mosey around to see if the door unlocked and if you touch it and it open, just hop in . . . You know, people don't have they door locked. Hop in with 'em, you know what I'm saying . . . 'you know what time it is.' . . . He didn't have no choice unless you gonna take a couple of bullets . . . Keep your mouth closed and do what I tell you, you know what I'm saying? Don't make no robbery turn into no murder . . . I'm like 'shit, just get out. Go get your dash on, run. Don't let nobody else outside see what you doin'."
The blitz technique has the same goal as a normalcy illusion but involves speed rather than cunning. In effect, the goal is to be so quick as not to alert the victim until it is too late to avert the attack.
For example, C-Ball recounted a time when, "the victim was just riding through and he stopped at a stoplight. ... He probably ain't paying attention... and so we ran up to him and put the gun to his head, 'get out of the car'." Snake described a similar incident: "Yeah, me and my partner, we saw him pull up to the lot. ... His partner was listening to the news. He couldn't hear, they got the music turned up loud. I went on ahead, my partner went around ... I ran up, pulling it [the gun] out real fast, 'give it up'."
Once the carjacker has maneuvered him- or herself into the physical space of the driver, their next task is to take control of (commandeer) the vehicle. Up to this point, a would-be carjacker has yet to commit a crime and could walk away an innocent man or woman. But once an offender begins to commandeer a vehicle—a process that begins with them verbally threatening the victim to gain compliance and ends with them driving off with the car—the offense is objectively and legally underway.
Essentially, the major choice they face at this point is whether to rely on threats or use physical violence to gain victim compliance (i.e., avoid victim resistance). It is here that procedural skills are at the forefront. Experienced offenders develop these skills over months or years of committing the same offenses repeatedly. As a result, we found that many of them reported using similar tactics to successfully enact carjackings. In all cases, force or the threat of force is used to gain compliance and prevent resistance during the enactment of a carjacking.
Some carjackers use physical force from the very beginning—a "shock and awe" approach—to expel the victim from the driver's seat. For instance, Richard recounted: "I never said a word to [the victim]. I just walked up and grabbed him by the collar and jerked him through the window. . . . [He] didn't have a clue what was going on." Thomas told of a time when he was "getting close to the car, then I just pow! I just punched him. ... He was out." And Gerald said, "I can grab you, and I know that I ain't going to really hurt you. But I can punch you a couple times, hit you in your stomach and knock your wind out. ... That's enough time for me to get in the car." If properly executed, the benefit of this carjacking technique is that it jettisons both the need for victim compliance and the threat of victim resistance.
Another way of commandeering a vehicle is to threaten the driver with bodily harm. The goal is to create an illusion of impending death, or at least impending injury, which compels the driver to do what is asked of him or her. For example, Michael said to his victim: "Give me this car or I'm going to kill you and your baby right now." To ensure the threat is taken seriously, carjackers may choose to pair their words with a visible firearm.
"Well we have a little .22 and a 9 [mm]. Me and my partner, we jumped out the van when I pulled up. I pulled up on the side and he automatically got the gun and pointed it to his head ... on the driver's side, the dude that was driving the car. ... if we had pulled up in front of them he'd have had time to do anything. He probably had a gun under the seat or something, or anything. When we pulled up on the side of him—'clack clack.' You can't do nothing. ... I mean he was scared. He don't say nothing. His life is in another man's hands. What is he going to say? He is too scared even to say anything. I mean if he even had the keys in his hands he's gonna give them up."
When carjackers' warnings are not taken seriously by victims, the offenders may escalate either the seriousness of the threat or mete out physical punishment. The intent of such escalations is to reaffirm the offenders' dominance and thereby gain the victims' compliance. This exemplifies the interplay between perceptual and procedural skills. As an offender threatens the victim, they employ their perceptual skills to determine whether these threats are having the intended effect. They then adjust their implementation of procedural skills related to making threats to maximize the effect. Corleone described how he issued more serious threats when he encountered resistance from victims:
"A couple of the guys wanted to be, you know, they wanted to be tough, you know. Like make mad faces like, 'man, I don't want to get out of the car,' you know, looking all crazy or whatever. [I] just screamed louder, use a heavier voice, put the gun, you know, cock it back some, scare them. They all get out. They gonna get out."
The Role of Risk-Mitigating Situational Awareness to Manage Outcomes
The external variables and high unpredictability of carjacking necessitate not just criminal skills but also meticulous risk management. Carjackers often operate under a carefully crafted set of rules and contingencies that allow them to adapt to unforeseen complications while mitigating exposure to danger or arrest. This adaptability under duress is a testament to their illegal 'expertise'.
Situational awareness is also pivotal in the carjacking arena. Situational awareness involves an acute consciousness of one's environment and changes within it, enabling carjackers to make rapid assessments and react accordingly. Elements such as the presence of police, potential witnesses, or environmental hazards all factor into the decision-making process. Offenders must also possess an intuitive grasp of human behavior, predicting and manipulating the reactions of their victims to gain control of the situation. This psychological maneuvering often dictates the difference between success and failure in this high-stakes crime.
Conclusion
Consequently, perceptual and procedural skills operate at two levels during a carjacking. First, it should be noted that perceptual skills precede procedural skills as the offender transitions from targeting to enactment. At the same time, perceptual and procedural skills are interwoven in a recursive manner within each stage of the carjacking. This nesting within each stage guides the more incremental decisions that unfold in real time.
The procedural tactics and perceptual acumen observed in offenses like carjacking underscore a complexity of skill that is comparable to those found in legitimate fields. The detailed understanding of situational awareness, coupled with the skillful application of procedural knowledge, points to a pressing need for innovative strategies in public awareness campaigns to effectively combat these threats. This comprehension of such sophistication offers crucial insights into preventive measures and emphasizes the critical role of situational awareness—not merely as a tool for prevention. As we delve deeper into the intricacies of crimes like carjacking, our defensive strategies must adapt and grow to match the advancing expertise of the criminals.
This study of carjacking methodology not only reveals the high skill levels prevalent within criminal circles but also highlights the significance of situational awareness as a preventive measure. By deepening our grasp of carjackers' thought processes and methods, society can enhance its preparedness, safeguard against these incidents, and prevent such crimes within the continually changing urban crime landscape.
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