From January 1 through Friday, there have been 87 carjackings in the nation's capital according to the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, but one would-be carjacker got more than he bargained for last week in a story that's made one near-victim a local legend.
Last Friday, the woman known to her neighbors in Southeast Washington as "Grandma" was driving to a chemotherapy appointment when she was confronted by a 15-year-old male who demanded she "give me your keys" and said "I got a gun," according to Grandma's recounting of the incident to local ABC News affiliate WJLA.
Grandma's response? "Baby, you better shoot me because you're not taking my car."
"He pushed me to the door and I got up and I grabbed him and was hitting his ass, and hitting him, and fighting him, and I said 'You not going to take my car, youngin,'" Grandma explained.
She called for help, and her neighbors came running to help her and catch the carjacker.
"I said, 'Oh, you're going to jail today — you're definitely going to jail — yes you are,'" Grandma recounted.
Thankfully, Grandma escaped with little more than a scar from when the teenage carjacker took her keys. According to D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department, the carjacker "left the scene in an ambulance" after Grandma and her neighbors were done with him — certainly not what he bargained for when he decided to carjack her. "They said it's a wonder he wasn't dead," Grandma added.
Sounds like a few more minutes with Grandma and her neighbors' version of justice and the carjacker might not have made it out of there at all...
Teen winds up in ambulance after trying to carjack DC grandma on her way to chemo. https://t.co/7Lsf2OQaNA
— Christina Sommers (@CHSommers) February 24, 2023
Sadly, Grandma's case is the outlier in the nation's capital. According to DC police data, carjackers were successful 87 times so far this year, with more than 60 percent of them involving the use of a firearm. Yet just eight arrests have been made year-to-date, seven of them juveniles like the one who tried to carjack Grandma last week and one just 13 years old.
Carjacking is just one crime that's plaguing Washington, D.C., with year-to-date statistics for other crimes also showing triple-digit percent increases over this time in 2022. Sex abuse offenses are up 108 percent, motor vehicle thefts have surged 111 percent, and arson is up 300 percent. Homicides are up 25 percent, while all crimes are up 23 percent in D.C.
The continued increase in crime comes as D.C.'s city council fights to lessen punishment for crime in the district. As Julio reported, the D.C. Council overrode Mayor Muriel Bowser's (D) veto of its soft-on-crime policy that eliminated most mandatory minimum standards and reduced penalties for burglary, robbery, carjacking, sexual assault, and illegally having a firearm. House Republicans have pledged to strike down D.C.'s new crime bill.
Maybe Grandma should speak at a future D.C. Council meeting?
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