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Carjacking suspect orders Lyft while trying to escape from police

By and FOX 2 Staff
Updated  August 31, 2023 5:17pm EDT
Crime and Public Safety
FOX 2 Detroit

Carjacking supsect calls Lyft while hiding from police

A man wanted for carjacking two different drivers was hiding in a Dearborn neighborhood and called for a Lyft in. hopes to get away, police said.

DEARBORN, Mich. (FOX 2) - A Lyft driver says Thursday morning was his last driving for the company after he was called by a carjacking suspect who was trying to escape from police in Dearborn -- and the driver likely avoided becoming the third victim.

The driver, who we are not identifying, said he received what seemed like a normal fare on Thursday morning. By the time he arrived to the area of Edison and Monroe, however, he knew this was nothing like a normal ride.

"The passenger he called me to two minutes before and was like you gotta pull up and I said I’ll be there," he said. "I see more than like 10 cars of cops and I didn’t know what was going on."

What he found was a 16-year-old carjacking suspect who was hiding from police. The teenager was wanted for two different carjacking over just a few hours in Wayne County on Thursday.

The first carjacking happened at a 7-Eleven in Wayne around 1 a.m. when police said he tried to take an employee's keys. When that failed, he settled for another SUV in the parking lot.

Two hours later, he wanted another ride at a Kroger off of Michigan Ave near Outer Drive, but the woman he tried to steal the car from wasn't going easily.

"When she didn’t get out of the car immediately he fired around in the air and thankfully she was able to get out of the car safely and into the store," Dearborn Police Chief Issa Shahin said.

He didn't get far and crashed in the parking lot before running into the neighborhood and ordering his Lyft.

"At one point he was hiding in a tree, and then another point he was hiding under a vehicle without the drone we’re not gonna see these folks," Shahin said.

Dearborn cops got the drone up and used thermal imaging to track the teen. When they found him, they recovered the gun.

"A lot of these juveniles, we are seeing Jessica, is they don’t understand the consequences of their actions. It's just very reckless behavior," Shahin said.

That's where the Lyft driver pulled in -- shocked by what he found. He was stopped by police and then helped investigators put all the pieces together. Now he's done driving for Lyft.

"I’m done with this job. That was my last one not worth it," he said.