Maeve Priestley was overcome with anxiety when she woke up early one morning and discovered the driver’s side window of her Honda Civic had been smashed out.
Priestley, 26, cried outside her Lake View condo building as she assessed the damage and realized an air bag had been ripped out of her steering wheel. She didn’t know what to do, so she called her dad.
“It’s a very violating experience,” says Priestley, a special education teacher. “I felt very panicked.”
She was among the more than 1,200 victims of air bag thefts in Chicago in the first four months of this year. Between 2023 and 2025, there were only 70 such thefts, according to Chicago police data.
Amid this year’s surge, the Chicago Police Department has suspended air bag theft investigations more quickly. And virtually all of the cases have gone unsolved, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of the data found.
The one man charged with stealing air bags this year has entered into a deferred prosecution agreement, meaning he won’t be convicted if he meets conditions imposed by the court.
A police spokesperson says theft investigations “often take time and can be difficult to solve without video or forensic evidence.”
Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36th) says he wants to give police another “tool” to address the spike in thefts. He’s proposed a crackdown on the black market for air bags that the City Council is expected to vote on Wednesday.
His ward, which covers parts of the West and Northwest sides, includes some of the hardest hit neighborhoods.
Lake View, where Priestley lives, has seen the most air bag thefts. Together with West Town, Logan Square, Belmont Cragin, Humboldt Park and Avondale, just six neighborhoods accounted for 42% of all reported thefts citywide.
“Where I live is super family friendly,” Priestley says, “so that was just really surprising.”
Thieves know ‘this is an easy thing to do’
Anthony Riccio, who retired as the second-ranking Chicago police official, says the spike in air bag thefts likely means criminals have noticed that police aren’t doing much to combat the problem.
Thieves smash car windows, swipe air bags and sell them on the black market for a few hundred bucks. Because thefts happen in minutes, or even seconds, it’s tough to make arrests, Riccio says.
“Word has gotten out that this is an easy thing to do,” he says. “Minimal tools, super quick, easy turnover, very profitable.”
Police have suspended air bag theft investigations quicker as the caseload has grown, records show. Of the more than 1,260 theft cases opened this year, almost 60% had already been suspended.
“Various units” across the police department’s five detective areas are tasked with investigating the thefts, according to the police spokesperson, who says cases are only closed “when all investigative avenues are fully pursued.”
“A suspended case will be reopened at any time additional evidence provides leads,” the spokesperson says.
The spokesperson acknowledged that thefts are hard to crack without video or other evidence. However, Priestley says police never asked for photos or videos that may have helped solve her case, even though her neighbors have Ring cameras and she took stills of the crime scene.
Her case was suspended in 26 days, records show.
In addition to the abysmal arrest rate, police have struggled to maintain accurate data tracking air bag thefts, records show. Roughly 4% of the cases analyzed by the Sun-Times were erroneously classified as air bag thefts.
Reason for the surge remains unclear
The Sun-Times spoke to more than a dozen representatives for automotive and public safety organizations. No one could offer a clear reason for the rise in air bags thefts.
What’s clear is that Hondas are the primary target. But Lynn Sealey, a Honda spokesperson, says the company only receives notice of an air bag theft in “unusual cases.” She says Honda’s primary concern is air bag deployment and safety.
Sair Arapovic, who owns Royce Auto in Bensenville, says Honda’s air bags are actually harder to steal than those installed in some other vehicles. That’s because the air bag compartments have a screw on each side, Arapovic says.
“Most of the air bags are just like a spring system, that all you have to do to remove it is [use] a pry tool that goes on the side of the steering wheel,” he says. “And literally, if you get the right position, it just pops out.”
Most thieves target cars parked on residential streets, but the circumstances were different in the only theft case that prompted charges this year.
In mid-March, a group allegedly stole air bags from a used car lot in Little Village. They slid the air bags under a fence, then fled in a Volkswagen SUV and hit a forklift that tried to stop them, according to a police report.
An 18-year-old man from Elgin was arrested and charged, the report says. But based on an agreement he made with prosecutors, he won’t be convicted if he stays out of trouble for a year and isn’t caught with a weapon.
No one has been arrested so far this year in any of the more common theft cases in residential neighborhoods .
A ‘commonsense’ crackdown
Ald. Villegas’ proposal would impose higher fines on those caught reselling stolen air bags.
Under the ordinance, junk dealers, pawn shops and auto repair stores must keep receipts proving where they got each of their airbags.
Shops caught buying and selling stolen air bags could face up to a $4,000 fine for the first violation. If a shop is caught multiple times within the span of a year, fines could increase by $2,000 or more.
But Villegas’ “commonsense” ordinance doesn’t address how the cops would actually find those resellers. He says he doesn’t know whether police have bolstered resources to address the increase in thefts.
“All I’m trying to do is provide [police] a tool, so that way we can try to address this huge spike in these air bag thefts,” he says.
The full City Council is expected to vote on the measure Wednesday.
Riccio, the former first deputy police superintendent, says the ordinance is “a step in the right direction.” But he wants to see one key provision to heighten the stakes for auto shops — a so-called presumption of illegal possession clause.
He says police should visit auto shops and demand documentation of their air bag inventory to check if they’re selling stolen goods. If shops don’t have the proper documentation, authorities would automatically assume the shop sells stolen air bags and would impose penalties.
“They can pass all the ordinances they want in the City Council,” he says. “If there’s not enforcement, essentially it’s not an effective ordinance.”
The 2600 block of North Orchard Street, a sleepy tree-lined stretch of Lincoln Park, is among the blocks that have been hardest hit by air bag thefts.
Residents have taken note. A handful of Hondas parked near Orchard and Schubert Avenue this month were equipped with bulky metal steering wheel bars. One sedan even had a full metal casing over its wheel.
Jinyoung Koh, 42, says her Honda CR-V was hit in mid-March, along with six other cars in the same day. Koh says she was forced to pay a $1,000 insurance deductible, and repairs took months because air bags were on back order.
She was shocked to hear the low arrest numbers:
“What are police officers doing? What kind of actions are they taking? And what are their strategic plans to reduce this crime?”