The issue of carjackings was in the spotlight during Tuesday’s meeting of the Prince George’s County Council.
“Carjackings in 2023: we’re investigating 508 cases. … We’ve arrested 115 adults and 147 juveniles; 35 of those juveniles were charged as adults,” Police Chief Malik Aziz said as he gave council members a briefing on the crime data.
Aziz said the increase in the dangerous crime since the start of the pandemic has mostly been driven by young people.
“We’ve seen, in my perspective, astronomical increases in carjackings committed by juveniles,” Aziz said.
Two council members said they recently had personal experiences with the crime.
“I think every member of this body is concerned about crime in general, but also how we normalize carjackings in our community. I’m baffled to understand why it’s happened but … I am someone who almost recently experienced a carjacking about 30 days ago,” District 3 Council member Eric Olson said. “My head was on a swivel, I was able to sense my surroundings and thank God that it did not happen, but it made it very real to me.”
In some carjackings, drivers are targeted by individuals riding in other vehicles.
“Me and my mom were driving home, maybe last week, and we were being followed, and luckily we noticed it and I had to call my fiancé to ask him to come meet us so he could trail us home. … This is something truly real, not just numbers that are happening,” District 7 Council member Krystal Oriadha said.
Aziz said the county cannot arrest its way out of the carjacking problem. He called for greater coordination among agencies that respond to juvenile crime, including police, the state’s attorney’s office, Juvenile Services, the school system, the Division of Parole and Probation and nongovernment offices.
Aziz also said that mental health services must extend beyond the juvenile to reach the juvenile’s family.
DC: “It’s baffling really”
Why do teenagers make up a major part of D.C.’s carjacking crisis? A panel of experts came together Monday night to exchange ideas about the reasons why kids get involved in carjacking.
The panel discussion, “Understanding Juvenile Carjacking,” included law enforcement, prosecutors and community members working to quell violence.
There were 958 carjackings in the District last year and juveniles made up more than 60% of the carjacking arrests.
“We have kids who are disconnected from their families, disconnected from their homes, disconnected from their schools, they are making community with other young people and young people making bad decisions together. Much of this is driven by peer pressure. Much of this is driven by boredom,” said D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb.
“We are seeing the phenomenon of social media playing a role in this across a lot of our [youth] today, but certainly with carjacking, in real time, posting, bragging, celebrating the joy of stealing cars, they’re having fun doing it, and they’re posting about it,” he added.
Police said many of the carjackings are perpetrated by the same kids.
“Some nights, we would get the same crew of children or juveniles committing eight carjackings in a night. Sometimes, they just drive them a short distance. … It’s baffling really, a lot of it is something to do, something to post about, something to talk about, something to build a reputation,” said First District Commander Colin Hall.
There have been at least 45 carjackings so far this year, 60% of them involving guns — the number is below the pace of last year and provides some hope things can improve.
“I do believe that (the number of carjackings) will go down this year. I’m hopeful for the coming year. I think we’re gonna have a much better year. … We have made many arrests, we know who many of the groups are that are committing these acts. A lot of them are, unfortunately, in the system, so we know where some of these people are going to once a carjacking has been committed, we know more of the trends, we know what to look for. So I think we’re better. We’ve come up with systems strategies to combat it,” said Commander Hall.
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