Crime & Safety
Suspects in Another Carjacking May Be Linked to First
A carjacking just off North Avenue could be related to another just three blocks from that scene and a week before. Two suspects, a juvenile and a young adult, were in custody.
Two suspects were arrested after a second carjacking within a week in the same East Tosa neighborhood, and Wauwatosa police believe they might have committed both.
The two were arrested by Milwaukee police May 29, the day after the second auto theft, after they were spotted driving the car.
In the first incident, on the morning of May 22, a Tosa man was punched in the head and had his keys ripped from his pocket before two young male subjects stole his wife's car from the couple's driveway in the 2200 block of North 69th Street.
At 5 p.m. May 28, two young men of similar description stole a man's car in the 2200 block of North 66th Street while he clung to his driver's door and was dragged about 75 feet.
The owner of Not Just Nuts, across the intersection of 66th and North Avenue, witnessed the crime and immediately called police. Video cameras at Tosa Liquor, on the corner where it happened, recorded the carjacking.
The victim told officers he had just pulled to the curb to chat with a friend he saw walking her dog on the sidewalk on the west side of 66th. He got out, he said, and left his black 2001 Volvo running while he and the woman met behind the car to talk.
He said a young man walked up to them, asked if the woman's dog was friendly and said he wanted to pet it. While the two friends were distracted by him, a second man ran from across 66th Street, pulled open the driver's door and jumped in.
His accomplice ran to the passenger door but found it locked and stood there pulling on the handle. The owner ran to his driver's door and pulled it open, whereupon the carjacker floored it and squealed off, dragging both the victim and his accomplice.
The owner held on for about 75 feet before letting go and falling. He was not injured in the incident.
The accomplice let go sooner and kept running full-tilt down the street after his companion with the car, with the owner up and chasing him. The driver of the stolen car stopped and picked up his accomplice in the 6500 block of West Garfield Avenue.
Video from Tosa Liquor showed, in the distance, the two suspects coming together from across North Avenue and splitting up, one on the east and one on the west side of 66th as they spotted the running car. The video was not of sufficient quality to make an identification.
Car spotted in Milwaukee; two arrested
Just after 4 p.m. the next day, two Milwaukee police patrol officers spotted a black Volvo sedan with no front plate coming toward them in the 4200 block of Concordia Avenue. The driver of the Volvo pulled over abruptly, the officer reported, and two young men quickly got out and walked away.The officers went around the block and then stopped the two, who claimed they had run out of gas and were going to meet a friend who lived nearby to help them. They gave an address for this friend that the officers found did not exist.
They briefly returned to the Volvo and ran the rear plate, learning it was stolen, and then raced back to pick up the two suspects. This time, the two ran for it.
One was overtaken in the 3300 block of Sherman Boulevard, the other two minutes later and a block away on North 44th Street. Officers found the keys to the Volvo near where they had first stopped the suspects.
One of the suspects was taken to the Milwaukee County Jail and his case was referred to the District Attorney's office. The other was taken to the Juvenile Justice Center. Ages and addresses of the suspects were redacted from police reports under the federal Driver's Privacy Protection Act.
Wauwatosa detectives thoroughly searched the Volvo and found, among other things, a red hooded sweatshirt with white stripes as described by the victim. Fingerprints and DNA swabs were lifted from the car and other items found inside. That evidence had not yet been processed as of latest report.
As for connecting the two carjackings, police reports from the second incident referred to the first as a "possible related case where an import auto was stolen by a similar M.O. (modus operandi)."
Other than general similarities in descriptions of the suspects, the latest reports did not refer to any physical evidence found so far or any statements by the suspects that might tie the two crimes. A request for updated information from the Wauwatosa Police Investigative Bureau had not yet gotten a reply late Wednesday afternoon.
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