Modus Operandi by Mauro Corvasce (universal ebook reader txt) 📕

2. To sell the vehicle and use the money for other criminal purposes.

3. Thrillseekers who desire a vehicle to joyride in and who will ultimately abandon the vehicle, sometimes setting it on fire. This is most frequently done by teenagers. Sometimes gangs in urban ghettos require this as an initiation into the gang.

4. The carjacker intends to kidnap the person operating the vehicle and will use the car to take the owner to an area where the owner will be raped, murdered,

robbed, beaten or abandoned.

The frequency of carjacking has created a market for alarms to combat it: self-defense weapons, ranging from mini-stun guns to mace, hot pepper spray, and electronic alarms that scream with ninety decibels or more of pulsating power. Carjacking is a direct physical confrontation, which could either go smoothly, the operator simply gives up his car, or more dangerously, there is a struggle and the operator ends up injured or killed.

Because carjacking occurs at such a fast pace—the owner is immediately demanded to exit the vehicle or drive the carjacker somewhere —it is the type of crime that is fraught with tremendous stress. Carjackers should be portrayed in your works as highly stressed individuals willing to take tremendous risks and willing to carry out threats.

Because of the violence associated with carjackings, Congress passed the Anti-Car Theft Act of 1992, which makes carjacking a federal offense. If apprehended and convicted of carjacking, the penalties imposed are much more severe than for regular car theft, so severe that not only are carjackers heavily fined, they can be sentenced to life in prison.

Methods of Carjacking

Here are few ways carjackers operate:

Carjacking at a Mall Parking Lot. This is one of the most popular and easiest carjackings to perform. The carjacker waits between cars or leans against a car and waits for the person to enter their vehicle. A carjacker will usually wait by vehicles parked far away from the stores so that there are not many people around to witness the incident. Some people park far away, because they have brand new vehicles and do not want them dented by other car doors opening against them.

Once the person puts the key in the door lock and unlocks the car, the carjacker has access to the vehicle, the person and the keys. During 1992 and 1993, Mauro and I experienced in our law enforcement area a tremendous surge in these types of carjackings, especially around Christ-

mas. Although many people thought the carjackers intended to steal the vehicle and rob them, it appeared many of these carjackers ultimately took their female victims hostage, robbed them and raped them.

Sometimes, carjackers will actually find a car whose owner has left it open and hide in the backseat waiting for the owner to return. In this scenario the owner knows the door is open and will simply enter the car and place the key in the ignition. Then he or she is suddenly confronted by a knife- or gun-wielding carjacker. At this point the carjacker will order the person to either exit the vehicle and leave his keys or to drive him to a location where the person is robbed, raped or sometimes murdered.

Another method is to have a different carjacker pretend to examine a tire or will make a tire flat. The "disabled car" is next to the target vehicle. When the victim returns to her car, the carjacker will strike up a conversation about his "dilemma" in having his tires go flat on him, even though the vehicle may not belong to the carjacker. He may then ask the woman to contact the police for him or to give him a lift to the nearest service station so that he can get assistance. Of course, once inside the woman's vehicle, he begins his reign of terror.

We have seen many instances in recent years where carjackers have forced the owner of a car from their vehicle in a mall parking lot and taken off only to find that they have an infant in the backseat. We have never heard of an incident in which the infant was harmed; usually the vehicle is abandoned a short time later. It seems as if infants are too much for carjackers to handle.

Random Carjacking in Urban Areas. This type of carjacking occurs when a vehicle has pulled up to either a stop sign or a red light in a largely urban and heavily populated area. The carjacker walks up to the driver's window, produces a handgun or a knife, menaces the person with it, and orders the owner either to step out or to move over, at which point the carjacker will jump into the vehicle.

When Joe was working as a detective for the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office, he investigated an incident that could only happen in New York. A woman was driving her car on Flatbush Avenue near Long Island College when she was carjacked at a red light. The carjacker approached her vehicle on foot from behind, pulled open the door, and produced a handgun. He shoved the handgun in the woman's face and ordered her to step out of the car. The woman, terrified, was thrown to the ground and the carjacker sped off in her vehicle, south on Flat-bush Avenue.

The carjacker headed to the East New York section of Brooklyn. While the carjacker was stopped at a stop sign on the corner of Herzl Street, he had his carjacked vehicle carjacked! Yes, that's right, while carjacker #1 was stopped, another carjacker appeared, opened the door of the vehicle, and attempted to pull carjacker #1 out. Carjacker #2, realizing that the occupant was armed, produced a handgun and a gun battle ensued right in the street.

Carjacker #2 was mortally wounded; however, carjacker #1 was shot in the neck and still lying on the ground when the police arrived. The police, thinking that carjacker #1 was the owner of the vehicle, and, therefore, the victim, removed him to the hospital where he was treated and