Smart-thinking 8-year-old saves herself and her baby sister from a carjacking after someone stole her father’s SUV at a carwash. 8-year-old Charley and 2-year-old Autumn were in the car when their father, Adam Jorgenson, stopped to get a cloth.
He left the car running and, on his way back, someone asked him for directions. This happened when another man jumped into the vehicle and drove away. Jorgenson called the police while his older daughter also worked on a plan to try to save herself and her sister.
“I was scared,” Charley told authorities. “I was like, what’s happening?” “Then he told me to get out, and I kept thinking, What should I do? Should I run and be a scaredy-cat, or should I save my sister too?” Charley narrated. She said she felt the need to do something.
“I should try to kick him or defend myself and Autumn. But I also thought I should stay in my seat and do nothing. Stay here, do the questions. But then I realized that Dad had the key. He can’t do anything without the key,” Charley explained.
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She said the driver asked her where the keys were, and she told him that her dad had them. Once the driver realized his predicament, he dumped the car and the girls about a mile down the road from the carwash and fled.
The 8-year-old then took her dad’s phone, which he had left in the car when the criminal took it. “Mom, I need you; we lost Dad,” Charley said in a call to her mother. Police quickly located the SUV after Jorgenson’s wife tracked his iPhone, and both girls returned safe and unharmed.
Jorgenson said that his daughter’s decision to stay put may have just saved her and her sister’s life. “It makes me proud that we’re raising our daughter to be self-sufficient. To think about not just herself and others but to also think about how to get the best out of a situation,” Jorgenson said.
“How can I best resolve it? Should I sit back or take action?” The carjacking is still under investigation; however, the police have arrested three men, aged 21, 20, and 17, in connection to the crime, who are now facing felony charges.
While this particular incident ended with a family reunited, many others aren’t so lucky, with several injured and some killed during carjackings. These carjacking incidents are now on the rise across the U.S.
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According to a Washington Post analysis, many cities have recorded an increase in carjackings since the pandemic year of 2020. From 2018 to March 2023, cities such as Chicago, Fort Worth, New Orleans, and San Francisco have seen a sudden skyrocket of participators in crime.
The National Insurance Crime Bureau recorded vehicle thefts soared to near-record highs during the first half of 2023. Thieves stole almost half a million vehicles nationwide. California had the highest number of stolen vehicle thefts. Texas, Florida, Washington, Illinois, Colorado, and New York also topped the list.
According to the Council on Criminal Justice, motor theft in the U.S. continued to climb as the months went by in 2023. Based on a study of 38 cities, a recent report found that carjackings rose 93% from 2019 to 2023.
Carjacking often involves violence or the threat of violence and is entirely different from unoccupied cars being stolen. Michael “Mike” Gill, a former D.C. election board appointee, was shot and critically wounded in Washington during what authorities called one man’s hours-long rampage of carjackings. Eventually, Gill died a few days later.
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