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‘Just happy to be alive’: Boardman police investigate carjacking

BOARDMAN, Ohio (WKBN) – Frightening moments for a young woman in Boardman late Monday night. Police say she was sitting in her car in her driveway when someone came up and took off with her vehicle.

Police are working to find whoever is responsible.

“I was just happy to be alive. I’m just happy no one got hurt. My family is right there and the door was wide open,” said 20-year-old victim Jacquelin Freeman.

The incident happened around 11:15 p.m. on Stanton Avenue.

“Was trying to roll the windows up and grab my stuff and about not even a whole 60 seconds later, two guys — two of the four guys — came up to my car and asked me for a dollar,” Freeman said.

Earlier that night, Freeman said her brother had warned her about people wandering the street and asking for money. According to a police report, Freeman’s brother was approached by four men in front of the Stanton Avenue house who asked him for 50 cents. When he told them he didn’t have any money, the men simply walked away.

But as it turned out, she became their next victim.

“I told them no, I don’t have a dollar, I don’t have any cash. So they started to like pull on the door, bang on the windows, show me their guns, said that they need my car,” she said.

Freeman said she was in shock and told the men to just take it and go.

She said the men stopped near Southern Boulevard and picked up two other people.

“I was worried for my family who were 50 feet away from two guns,” she said.

One of those family members was her 3-month-old son. She’s hugging him extra tight and sent out this message to her community.

“With the drugs and the overdoses and the murders. There’s been children every week. People my age… I’ve lived here for two decades and there are people my age dying blocks away from me. It freaks me out,” Freeman said.

Freeman used Find My iPhone to lead police to the 2000 block of Glenwood Avenue Monday night, where they found a few items that were in her stolen car. One of those items was her cell phone, which will be sent in for possible fingerprints.

As of right now, the car has not been recovered and the incident remains under investigation.