DETROIT (WXYZ) — "He was quite scared. He said he feared for his life," an undercover Detroit Police Department officer said about a food delivery driver who was carjacked at gunpoint around midnight Friday.
The robbery was a setup from the start.
Members of DPD's Commercial Auto Theft Section said the carjackers placed a delivery order with a restaurant in Dearborn and gave an address on Littlefield near Elmira streets in Detroit for the driver to drop off the order.
The people who live at that house told 7 Action News that they didn't order any food but saw police officers searching the backyard of a vacant house next door around 3 a.m.
It seems the carjackers gave the couple's address to the restaurant when placing the order but then waited in the rear of the vacant house to watch for the delivery driver to pull up. And when he got out of his vehicle, he was ordered to the ground.
The carjackers stole his vehicle, cash and personal belongings at gunpoint.
After the carjackers took off in his car, the driver went to a nearby gas station to call 911. Within minutes, officers arrived and then activated members of CATS.
And by 3 a.m. with the assistance of uniformed officers and Michigan State Police, three suspects had been arrested. Two of them matched the victim's description. Police also recovered a firearm that also matched the victim's description.
"If you're thinking about doing a carjacking, don't do it," said Lt. Dana Russell, who heads up DPD's Organized Crime.
Russell stressed the unit's commitment to driving down the number of carjackings in the city and said they've begun initiating federal prosecution of carjacking cases to increase the penalties in hopes of getting would-be carjackers to think twice.
"It may seem like it's easy and you can get away with it, but you're not," CATS Sgt. Otha Craighead said.
