When a stranger approached Adam Jorgenson at a carwash asking for directions, he did not imagine that the seemingly innocent request would soon propel him into a nightmare.
First, the screech of tires. Then, the shocking realization that his vehicle had just been stolen - with his two children still in the back seat.
“Someone just stole my car on 27th street with my two kids in the car,” a breathless Jorgenson can be heard telling police in Oak Creek, Wis., in audio published by NBC News. As Jorgenson called for help, his elder daughter, Charley, was also working on a plan to try to rescue herself and her 2-year-old sister, Autumn.
“They told me to get out of the car,” Charley told WTMJ. “I was like, oh, what should I do? Should I run and be a scaredy-cat? Or should I save my sister, too?”
The 8-year-old chose to stay with her sibling, who was crying inside the vehicle, before reaching for her dad’s cellphone, which had been left behind when the car got taken. “Mom, I need you. We lost Dad,” Charley can be heard saying in a voice-mail message left for her mother.
The vehicle was found soon after, abandoned about a mile down the road from the carwash, Oak Creek Police Department said in a statement released Feb. 4, adding that they had three men between the ages of 17 and 21 in custody. Both children were unharmed, police said.
While this particular incident ended with a family reunited, other victims are not so lucky, with scores injured and even killed during carjackings - which are on the rise across the United States.
Many cities recorded an increase in carjackings during the coronavirus pandemic, including Chicago, Fort Worth, New Orleans and San Francisco, according to a Washington Post analysis of crime reports from 2018 to March 2023.
Carjackings involve violence or the threat of violence, and are different from unoccupied cars being stolen, The Post reported last year, as the crime became a political talking point as Congress debated D.C.’s crime and policing bills.
According to the Council on Criminal Justice think tank, motor theft in the United States continued to climb through 2023. A recent report found that carjackings rose 93 percent from 2019 to 2023, based on a study of 38 cities.
Early last week, Michael “Mike” Gill, a former D.C. election board appointee, was shot and critically wounded in downtown Washington during what police said was one man’s hours-long rampage of carjackings in the District and suburban Maryland. Gill died on Saturday. Police said that the assailant also fatally shot Alberto Vasquez Jr., 35, and committed or attempted to commit at least three other carjackings during a span of less than 10 hours.
In an attempt to curb the crime in New York City, Mayor Eric Adams (D) promised to hand out 500 Apple AirTags to residents to keep inside their vehicles so that their cars can be easily traced if stolen, Business Insider reported last year.
According to the National Insurance Crime Bureau, vehicle thefts soared to near-record highs during the first half of 2023, with almost half a million vehicles stolen nationwide. California had the highest number of vehicle thefts in the first half of 2023, with almost 100,000 vehicles stolen. Texas, Florida, Washington, Illinois, Colorado and New York also topped the list.