The teen thieves yanking District drivers out of their cars, often at gunpoint, increasingly see violent crime as a game and aren’t particularly concerned about consequences, say police who’ve interrogated the young offenders.
Nearly half of the 572 carjacking offenses reported by the Metropolitan Police Department this year have taken place in June (139) and July (120) alone, and statistics show that juveniles make up the bulk of those arrested.
Thirteen of the 16 carjacking arrests in June were underage suspects, and 14 of the 19 in July were also legal minors.
Carjackings are up 98% citywide so far this year. Two-thirds of those arrested for the crime have been juveniles.
Having a car taken by force can upend or even cost the life of a victim, but for many of the young suspects accused of stealing vehicles, felony charges represent little more than a casual brush with the law.
“It has been uttered several times: ‘Oh, I’ll be back out,’ or, ‘I’m not saying nothing,’” MPD’s Sixth District Commander Darnel Robinson told The Washington Times.
The veteran officer said young suspects are often cavalier with investigators during their booking interviews.
“They know the game, [and] it is a game to them, unfortunately,” Cmdr. Robinson said.
That game-like nature may explain why juvenile suspects are often connected to wild carjacking sprees across the District.
Four boys between the ages of 15 and 17 were arrested last week for their roles in 16 incidents of either armed carjacking or armed robbery throughout July, according to police. In each of those incidents, the juveniles flashed a gun and made off with the victims’ vehicle or personal belongings.
Police said they also arrested three teen boys — two 15-year-olds and a 16-year-old — in June for carrying out 10 armed carjackings over less than four hours. Again, the boys approached victims, flashed a gun and took victims’ vehicles before fleeing the scene.
It’s not just boys who are gravitating toward criminal behavior. A 13-year-old girl was arrested for an unarmed carjacking in Northwest last week after police said she and two other juveniles rear-ended a victim’s car, assaulted the driver and then took their vehicle.
Cmdr. Robinson said that this summer’s rash of juvenile offenders aren’t acting on behalf of more sophisticated adult criminals, nor are they stealing the cars in order to carry out more heinous crimes.
Case in point: the juveniles typically park the stolen cars near their homes, the MPD commander said. In those instances, police will charge the youths with unauthorized use of a motor vehicle — a lesser crime police use if they don’t have enough evidence to support a carjacking accusation.
Authorities said that the felony became a fashionable activity among teens in 2021 due to the Kia Boyz challenge, a social media trend that demonstrated how to hotwire older model Kias and Hyundais with just a USB cable.
Breaking into a car and hotwiring the ignition has snowballed since into a more dangerous crime of opportunity.
Add in an inconsistent level of enforcement from D.C.’s Office of Attorney General, and local police say these teen suspects are seeing an opening to exploit.
“The people who are listening may very well be juveniles knowing that the accountability piece is failing in the judicial system,” Cmdr. Robinson said. “I think that the only common denominator that has changed is us addressing the lack thereof in accountability for juveniles participating, or being subjected to, [serious] offenses.”
D.C. police aren’t the only law enforcement department lamenting how sparse punishment is for the young car thieves.
Minneapolis has seen a 62% spike in nonviolent auto thefts so far this year, with a small number of juveniles responsible for repeatedly committing the crime.
Police Chief Brian O’Hara said the teens are arrested and quickly released, which emboldens them to carry out violent crimes. For example, a group of teens shot up a building belonging to the city’s public school system in May after driving a stolen car to the area.
“If a young person is a repeat offender, keeping them 24 hours, keeping them 48 hours will … ensure that we keep them alive, but also we’ll send a very quick message to their friends that are out there,” Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara told local Fox affiliate KMSP-TV at the time. “The way that it’s set up now, we’re not taking the fun out of this. And I feel like a lot of these kids think they’re just living in a video game.”
The District’s locally elected prosecutor handles most juvenile offenses in the city, with the OAG also tasked with arguing for whether or not to hold children pretrial or pursue charges at all.
A spokesperson for the OAG pushed back on the D.C. police’s characterization that the prosecutors aren’t holding up their end of the bargain when it comes to handling underage defendants.
“We prosecute all serious and violent crimes committed by juveniles, including carjacking and armed robbery, where we have the evidence needed to do so,” the spokesperson said in a statement to The Times. “We don’t use diversion in serious violent cases, and when it is necessary to protect public safety, we request that youth be detained in secure confinement.”
D.C. law stipulates that children can be held pretrial if they’re deemed a danger to the community or if they can’t be trusted to show up to court on their own. And while prosecutors can argue to hold the young suspects, much of the onus falls on judges to agree that juveniles meet the standard for detention.
That was evident in Tuesday’s court hearing for the 14-year-old boy accused of gunning down construction worker Rafael Adolfo Gomez on Howard University’s campus.
The boy is accused of working with a group of suspects to carry out two armed carjackings and an armed robbery before the fatal encounter with Gomez near the intersection of Sixth and Bryant streets in Northwest around 6 a.m. on July 13, according to the Washington Post.
D.C. Judge Sherri-Beatty Arthur determined there was enough evidence that the boy was present during the crimes. He was ordered into the custody of the Department of Youth and Rehabilitation Services.
But other district judges routinely turn youth offenders loose.
The 17-year-old who pleaded guilty for his role in last summer’s attempted carjacking-turned-shooting of Washington Commanders running back Brian Robinson Jr. skipped out on his sentencing hearing this spring after being placed on house arrest.
He only returned to court weeks later after police rearrested the boy on drug distribution charges.
Cmdr. Robinson said new Acting Chief Pamela Smith plans to unveil an initiative aimed at stemming the District’s carjacking epidemic soon.
In the meantime, D.C. police are advising drivers to be aware of their surroundings, especially when they are idling in their car.
