The Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia has arrested a Maryland teenager in connection to the carjacking of a Council of the District of Columbia candidate earlier this month, officials announced Sunday.
The 17-year-old suspect was arrested Friday and charged with carrying a pistol without a license, unauthorized use of a vehicle, and possession of an unregistered firearm, according to police documents. After further investigation by the MPD’s carjacking task force, officials also charged the teenager with robbery in relation to the case.
“I’m pleased to see that MPD has made an arrest of one of the suspects in this incident,” Nate Fleming, an at-large candidate for the D.C. Council, told the Washington Examiner in a statement. “We know that in a majority of these carjackings juveniles are the assailants as was the case here. We need to attack juvenile violent crime comprehensively both in the short-term and in the long-term.”
Fleming was approached by the suspect at a gas station on the 4200 block of Nannie Helen Burroughs Avenue and Minnesota Avenue in Northeast Washington around 1:30 p.m. on Jan. 15. The teenager demanded Fleming’s keys while brandishing a handgun, according to the report.
WATCH: VIDEO SHOWS DC COUNCIL CANDIDATE BEING CARJACKED AT GAS STATION
Fleming complied, and the suspect left the scene in the vehicle. Another suspect also fled the scene in a separate vehicle, although it’s unclear whether police have identified the second driver.
The local politician posted on Twitter Sunday evening that although his car “was recovered,” it has not been given “back to me yet.”
“To be threatened at gunpoint is shocking, but I am not surprised that I was attacked given the increase in carjackings and the crisis facing young people in this city,” Fleming tweeted on Jan. 15 after the incident.
Carjackings have been on the rise in Washington, with several incidents reported in the last week that usually result in suspects robbing multiple people. In one incident, the MPD linked teenage suspects to a string of carjackings on Jan. 26.
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“In the past two weeks, there have been numerous carjackings throughout the District including another one at the same gas station where I was carjacked and several carjackings in the blocks nearby,” Fleming said. “Urgent action is needed.”
