A 22-year-old man faces charges after police said he tried to carjack two vehicles Tuesday evening in Newark, including an unmarked police vehicle being driven by an off-duty officer.
The man, a Newark resident, remained at Howard R. Young Correctional Institution on Wednesday afternoon after failing to post a $5,000 bail.
What happened during the incidents?
The incidents began about 8:40 p.m. Tuesday when police said a man approached an occupied vehicle and opened the car door, ordering the person inside to get out while also forcibly trying to remove him from the vehicle.
The car occupant was able to get the person off him, lock his doors and call police, who met them in the first block of E. Main St.
Minutes later, investigators said an off-duty Newark officer was driving an unmarked police vehicle and stopped on East Main Street a few yards away from the first incident.
That’s when police said a man came up to his vehicle, opened the door and ordered the off-duty officer to get out of the vehicle.
The man fled after the off-duty officer identified himself as police.
The off-duty officer chased him and with the assistance of other officers, the man was taken into custody without incident. The man was also identified as being involved in the first attempted carjacking, police said.
Carjacking trends in Delaware, nationwide
The incident comes within a week of a series of carjackings in Delaware, including two near the Delaware State Police’s Prices Corner troop that ended in chases onto I-95.
On March 28, a 30-year-old woman carjacked another woman outside a Prices Corner drug and alcohol rehabilitation center, then led police in a car chase that ended in Pennsylvania with officers there using their vehicles to stop her.
Then on Monday, what started as a carjacking in the Prices Corner Shopping Center turned into a car chase that ended in gunfire on I-95.
Background:
More:Carjacking outside Prices Corner rehab center leads to police chase into Pennsylvania
More:Carjacking in Prices Corner ends with gunfire on I-95 near Brandywine Hundred
Motor vehicle thefts and carjackings have been steadily rising for several years, according to a report from the Council on Criminal Justice. The report also found:
- Of 30 cities with data on motor vehicle thefts, 27 have seen a rise since the beginning of the pandemic.
- Motor vehicle thefts rose 21% in 2022 — up 59% from 2019, based on data from those cities.
- Vehicle thefts more than doubled in eight of those cities from 2019 to 2022.
- Based on data from seven cities, carjackings rose by 24% from 2020 to 2022. For context, motor vehicle thefts in those cities rose 54% during that time.
Despite the rise, carjackings aren’t as common as Americans may assume, Rick Rosenfeld, lead report author and criminologist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, told USA Today. Overall, motor vehicle theft rates are more than 20 times greater than the rates for carjackings, he said.
Contact Esteban Parra at (302) 324-2299, eparra@delawareonline.com or Twitter @eparra3.
