WASHINGTON — Real life isn't usually like the movies. But video of a terrifying carjacking in Navy Yard looks a whole lot like a heart-stopping cops and robbers film.
"OH MY GOD!!!!" screams neighbor Jessica Wilson Jones as a Jeep does a sudden three point turn on First St., SE, first backing into a stopped Honda, then driving forward right into a parked Tesla and a Chevy Impala.
The alleged carjacker then backs up again, right toward two police officers who are trying to stop him with guns drawn.
State Department Foreign Service Officer Wilson Jones happened to be working from home and caught the whole thing from her window.
Police had originally responded to the scene for a shoplifter at the CVS.
"From there, that individual tried to carjack two other cars to get away from that other incident. And that's when he found the poor guy sitting in his Jeep," Jones said.
Witnesses say the suspect jumped into the back of a Jeep Wrangler near 1st and I St. SE. When the driver, a personal trainer from Virginia, saw cops boxing in his vehicle, he bailed out, abandoning the Jeep to the alleged thief.
From there, the suspect grabbed the wheel and started slamming into parked cars to get away. "Watch out!" Wilson Jones husband whispered, as the officers ran back to avoid getting hit by the Jeep. "Oh my God!" Wilson Jones says. Then from her husband: "Jesus, what's going on with that car?"
"He almost hit the cop, the cop had to step away from the situation," Wilson Jones said. "A lot of people are saying the cops should have engaged or shot the car," she said. "There are a lot of pedestrians, if you look around here, so many apartment buildings. And so, I think the cops actually handled it pretty well."
The guy drove off down First Street, blowing through stop signs and nearly hitting pedestrians.
DC Police just put out images of the suspect in hopes of catching him. DC Crime Solvers is offering up to $1,000 in reward money for information leading to his arrest.
"I have a one year old, and my biggest fear is somebody doing that to us and my kid is in the back," said Wilson Jones. She lived in Baltimore and moved to Navy Yard hoping her family would be safe and secure. Now she plans to leave.
Congressional Republicans are already sharing video of the carjacking in their continuing battle with D.C. over crime in the city.