A 15-year-old boy was charged yesterday with carjacking a woman in Old Town late last year, police said.
The carjacking took place on the 1400 block of North Wells around 2:30 p.m. on December 2.
Police said a man bumped into a 32-year-old woman as she stepped out of her Lexus SUV and took away her car keys. She then saw two other men getting into her car, and one of them tried to hit her, but the punch missed, a police spokesperson said at the time.
All three offenders fled with the woman’s car.
Prosecutors charged the teen with vehicular hijacking. CPD’s vehicular hijacking task force arrested him on the 1100 block of South Hamilton, which is where the county’s juvenile justice center is located. That usually indicates the arrestee has other criminal cases pending.
Carjacking reports increased 18% in February compared to the same month last year, according to the latest info from CPD. There were 147 hijackings last month — up from 125 during February 2021. By comparison, February 2019 had just 30 cases.
There was a decline in carjackings during January compared to the one-month record set in January 2021. As a result, hijacking cases are down 11% year-over-year even with February’s increase.
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