Two Northeast Jackson teens are recovering from the shock of a carjacking that occurred last week during spring break.
The high school couple went out to get ice cream on Thursday, March 17 and was returning home when the driver stopped and parked in the front parking lot at Covenant Presbyterian Church on Ridgewood Road at about 10 p.m. to check his text messages.
An armed man wearing a mask opened the driver’s door and another armed man wearing a mask opened the passenger door, according to the father of one of the teens, who did not want his name or the teens’ names to be used because they are scared and traumatized from the incident.
About the same time, a car pulled behind the 2020 SUV the teens were in and blocked it in and two more men, each armed and covered by a mask, appeared.
“One of them held a gun to my daughter’s temple and said he was going to shoot her,” said the teen’s father.
The teenage couple managed to get away without being physically hurt while the SUV was driven away.
The father of one of the teens said his daughter gave up her purse and cellphone but the other teen managed to keep his cellphone which his daughter used to call 911 to report the incident and then her mother.
The father of one of the teens arrived at Covenant to take the teens home and noticed a JPD car was across the street in the parking lot at Northminster Baptist Church, and they drove over there so an officer, who mistakenly ended up there instead of at Covenant, could take the report.
The SUV has not been recovered, although friends of the teens reported seeing it the next day being driven at County Line and Pear Orchard roads and the father of one of the teens let JPD know that.
The father of one of the teens has since tried to reach JPD but has not been able to do so using the phone number he was given.
The teens’ “peripheral vision” has changed, the father of one of the teens said.
“People need to be aware this is happening in the city,” he said. “It’s out there. You can’t pretend it’s not.”
Jackson City Council Member Ashby Foote of Ward 1 plans to bring the armed carjacking to the attention of U.S. Attorney Darren J. LaMarca.
“Armed carjacking is a federal crime,” Foote said.
Carjackings, felons in possession of firearms, drug offenses and robberies of business as well as violent crimes committed by gangs under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act are some of the cases the U.S. Attorney’s Office prosecutes.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office is working with federal law enforcement agencies such as the FBI, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Marshals Service along with the Jackson Police Department and the Hinds County District Attorney’s Office to help combat crime in Jackson.
In January, JPD acknowledged a team of individuals was committing carjackings across Jackson. JPD arrested Timarius Forrest, 15, Jeshawn White, 15, and Trenton Esco, 16, and charged each as an adult with armed carjacking for two carjackings in Belhaven Heights earlier this year.
