City authorities in Milwaukee, Baltimore, St. Louis, and Seattle – all Democrat-run cities – are suing car makers Kia and Hyundai for “not doing enough to prevent [their] cars being stolen,” amid skyrocketing rates of carjackings.
Baltimore is the most recent city to sue the two car companies, with Democrat Mayor Brandon M. Scott, claiming, “[Kia and Hyundai] have left our residents vulnerable to crime and are significantly burdening our police resources.”
Baltimore follows the city of Milwaukee, which, in March this year, announced its decision to file action against the two car companies. The Wisconsin Attorney General, Democrat Josh Kaul, alongside 22 other state representatives, penned a letter to Kia and Hyundai wherein they demanded that the companies “take swift and comprehensive action to remedy” what the city describes as “ongoing consumer harm and undimmed public safety.”
The letter stated:
“Alarmingly high rates of theft of these vehicles have been sustained over a long period of time. Your consumers continue to be harmed as a result, and worse yet, the thefts contribute to an erosion of public safety as they are frequently accompanied by reckless driving and the commission of other crimes, further endangering our communities. While your companies are reported to have taken some steps to address this crisis, it hasn’t been enough, and it hasn’t been done fast enough.”
The decision to sue the companies has not received the unanimous support city authorities perhaps expected. One Milwaukee resident, Amanda Mattefs, who has had her Hyundai stolen twice, questioned the sense in suing the manufacturers.
Mattefs told Fox 6: “They need to take a deeper look at what was happening then and is happening now, and it still hasn’t changed. They’ve just been talking about change and nothing really has.”
Without Merit.
Unsurprisingly, car manufacturers are denying responsibility for the soaring crime in Democrat cities, with Kia arguing that the lawsuits are “without merit.” The companies even issued steering wheel locks to over 4,000 owners in an effort to counter the trend, but the success has been minimal.
All of the cities suing the manufacturers have defunded or re-oriented local police forces following the Black Lives Matter riots that left dozens dead and cost billions in damages. Milwaukee, for example, has cut over 120 police officers from the force, and Minneapolis slashed $20 million from policing budgets.
TikTok Trend.
In late 2021, a trend involved a group called the “Kia Boyz” began on the Chinese Communist Party’s influence app TikTok.
Originally from Milwaukee, the group posted videos on the social media site demonstrating the ease with which one could steal a Kia or Hyundai. Since then, the trend has gone viral and been copied across the United States.
In the first three months of 2023, 373 Kias and 304 Hyundais were stolen in Milwaukee. Carjackings involving a Kia or Hyundai rose 95 percent, representing 41 percent of all the vehicles stolen in the city.
In Minneapolis, Kia and Hyundai carjackings increased 836 percent in 2022 compared to 2021. St. Louis witnessed a 1,090 percent increase, and in 2022 alone, Chicago reported over 7,000 car thefts involving the two brands.
The news comes as even the nation’s capital city, Washington, D.C., is experiencing a dramatic escalation in violent carjackings, with Democrat Mayor Muriel Bowser ostensibly unfazed by the matter.
