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She didn't see it coming.

Before a Milwaukee woman could open the rear hatch of her GMC Yukon, she was pushed to the ground from behind, her keys clattering nearby.

She stretched out her arm, but the teen who hit her had already snatched the keys and climbed in the SUV.

As she ran for the passenger side, he started the car. The teen backed out of the driveway of the day care where the woman had stopped to pick up her daughter.

He flipped her off and smirked as he drove away.

The carjacking suspect, Deandre Rogers, now 18, was involved with five stolen cars and three robberies over a two-week period in March, police say. He already had been charged in three earlier cases dating back to November in which he is accused of driving or riding in stolen cars.

And, police say, there are more teens like Rogers throughout Milwaukee.

Auto thefts had been declining in Milwaukee — the drop from the first half of 2007 to the first half of 2013 was 54% — but exploded during the first six months of this year with 2,877 reported auto thefts and attempted thefts, a nearly 70% increase over the first half of 2013, when there were 1,703.

It's eye-popping compared with other crime categories in the Milwaukee Police Department's six-month report. Violent crime — homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assaults — hardly changed from 2013 and property crimes dropped.

While violent crime attracts the most attention, crimes like auto theft exact serious damage to a community, Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn said this week.

"I believe in our disadvantaged neighborhoods that a stolen car is a stolen job," Flynn said. "We do not have a robust transportation apparatus. People drive to work. When their car gets damaged and they can't operate it or it gets taken, they can't get to work."

The Milwaukee Police Department has sliced and diced the problem: They know what's being stolen (usually Dodge and Chrysler models, mid-2000s and older, that are easier to steal). They know who is stealing (teens, mostly). They know how (usually a screwdriver, or a key if the car is left running).

"These vehicles are not being taken out of state, they're not being crushed, they're not being taken to chop shops," Capt. Regina Howard said. "They're being used to commit other offenses and for joy riding."

Five years ago, when an officer would spot a teen in a stolen car, there might be one or two other people with him, Detective John Ivy said. Now, there are seven or eight teens.

"If it's 2 a.m. and there's a bunch of 15-year-olds in a car with nothing to do, they're driving around getting into any sort of trouble they can," he said.

Flynn said it's difficult to pinpoint a single reason for the jump in auto thefts.

"Something has happened and it's just become widespread," Flynn said. "We don't just have a crime here, we have a social phenomenon."

Nonpursuit policy

On a recent summer night, two police officers in a squad car ran a license plate of a maroon minivan.

It was stolen.

They followed it to the intersection of W. Center and N. 26th streets and flicked on their emergency lights for a traffic stop.

The van pulled over to the right.

"He's gonna take off," the officer said to his partner.

The officer didn't even make it to the van's rear bumper before it drove away and ran a red light.

The incident is called a "nonpursuit" in police jargon. The officers do not chase the stolen car. Under department rules, they can't.

A pursuit policy enacted in 2010 requires officers to have probable cause that someone in the car is committing a violent felony or is "a clear and immediate threat to the safety of others" before pursuing them. Even when drivers are suspected of serious crimes, police must end a pursuit if the risk to the public is too great.

Since the policy was enacted in 2010, the number of pursuits — and injuries caused by them — has drastically declined, while the number of nonpursuits has spiked to more than 240 so far in 2014.

The consequences of this crime are not worth the risk to the public, Flynn said.

And the teens know the rules. They've taunted officers: slowing down only to speed away, circling the block and sticking up their middle fingers.

"It's really just a game to these kids," Assistant Chief Kurt Leibold said.

"They know we can't chase them and we don't chase them because they'll kill someone," he said.

Just because they don't chase them doesn't mean police have lost out on an arrest.

As of July 5, 85% of stolen cars in 2014 had been recovered. Two-thirds of those recovered cars had minor or no damage, suggesting they were used for joy riding.

In those cases, the police can dust for prints. Rogers — the carjacking suspect — was linked to another robbery when his fingerprint was found inside a stolen Jeep Cherokee.

"The best we can do is fingerprint, but how do we know when and where they were in that car to charge them?" said Joy Hammond, an assistant district attorney.

Slap on the wrist

Milwaukee police say sending teens to Children's Court seems to offer little deterrent if they spend perhaps one night in detention before being sent home with a parent or guardian and given a future court date.

"No one here is going to argue that all juveniles should face some sort of severe sanction for everything they do," Flynn said. "But if you need services or deserve sanctions and receive neither, what you have learned from the experience?"

Each juvenile that is referred to Children's Court undergoes an evaluation that takes into account prior criminal record, the seriousness of the new charge and any history of fleeing. The evaluation advises judges if a juvenile should be detained or released, but ultimately the decision is up to the judge, Chief Children's Court Judge Mary Triggiano said.

"Was it a couple of kids who stole it to joy ride and when they were pulled over, they stopped, or was it kids who got into a car and used it to commit strong-arm robberies?" she said. "You have a myriad of factors with how you deal with juveniles."

A dangerous arrest

Just before 4 a.m. on March 20, Milwaukee police officers were called for a suspicious van parked in an alley off N. Port Washington Road.

When they peeked inside, officers saw a peeled ignition cylinder — a hallmark of stolen cars — and several men sleeping inside. They parked their squad cars to trap the van, switched on their flashlights and loudly announced, repeatedly, "Police, show me your hands."

The van's occupants began to stir, and the driver tried to put the car in gear. As he floundered, the front passenger jumped over the center console, slammed the gas pedal and shifted gears.

Three officers lunged out of the way. The van knocked a Taser out of one officer's hand.

The van hit a parked squad car and accelerated, trying to push the squad out of the way.

The van doors were opened and everyone — all six — was arrested. One of the passengers was Rogers.

Last month, a jury convicted him on robbery and bail jumping charges connected to the stolen cars. He awaits sentencing and still has several other open cases, though he was acquitted in the case of the GMC Yukon.

Rogers was one of the high-value targets identified by a team that includes Hammond in the district attorney's office, police, and corrections and court officials. The goal, she said, is to gather as much information about a teen as possible to determine who is causing the most damage.

"When you take the highest-value targets, you take more than just one person off the street," Hammond said. "With Rogers, there were a lot of people following him around. Cutting off the head really does make a difference."

Bracing for rest of year

The team is gearing up for the latter half of the year, a time when, traditionally, auto thefts tend to be higher. Initial numbers for July show another increase compared to July 2013.

Patrol officers are focusing on targeted traffic stops. Detectives including Ivy are working on a larger case using latent evidence on stolen cars and targeting teens connected to violent crime.

The pilot Juvenile Milwaukee Collaborative Offender Re-entry Program is in full swing in Districts 3 and 7. Officers and probation agents are putting former teen offenders on notice that law enforcement knows who they are, offering families resources, if needed, and trying to deter the offenders' siblings from following a bad example.

But there's one thing that law enforcement can't replace.

"It's a sad statement that there's clearly no supervision on these kids," Hammond said. "They're 13, 14, 15 years old, out all hours of the night on weekdays. People just don't seem to be aware of what their kids are doing."

Top stolen vehicles in 2014 in Milwaukee

1. Dodge Caravan

2. Dodge Intrepid

3. Dodge Stratus

4. Chrysler Town & Country

5. Dodge Neon