Ohio mother killed trying to stop a carjacking with her son inside
Detectives in Columbus, Ohio, this weekend were searching for two men as they investigated the death of a woman who was fatally struck by her own vehicle while trying to stop a carjacking that occurred with her 6-year-old son in the car.
Alexa Stakley, 29, was carjacked shortly before 1:30 a.m. Thursday while picking up her son at the home of a babysitter after wrapping up a shift waiting tables, according to the police.
After putting the sleeping 6-year-old inside her 2022 silver Honda SUV, Stakley walked back toward the babysitter’s house to retrieve an item, according to a police report.
As she turned back, Stakley saw her car moving.
She was seen “running toward her Honda and was heard screaming for her child,” the police report said.
Moments later, Stakley was struck by the vehicle, suffering a fatal wound to the head.
Shortly afterward, two men were seen running away from the area, abandoning the vehicle nearby, the police said. Police officers found the child inside the car unharmed.
Carjackings have been called “an important public safety threat” by the Department of Justice, which earlier this year announced it had established 11 task forces to combat the crime in areas of particular concern, like Philadelphia, Chicago and Tampa, Florida.
Nationwide, carjacking has historically been challenging to track because police departments do not report that type of crime in a consistent manner, said Alex Piquero, a criminology professor at the University of Miami and a former director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Carjackings soared in many cities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, crime data suggests that they have declined in some cities, including Washington, D.C., but climbed in others, including Milwaukee. Law enforcement officials say many carjackings have been carried out by teenagers.
According to the FBI’s most recent annual crime report, some 25,400 carjackings were reported to the police in 2022, an 8.1% increase over the number of cases the year before. But Piquero said that data from cities that make crime data available in real time suggests carjackings have become less common in much of the country over the past couple of years. That is consistent with a broader drop in violent crime, he said.
© 2024 The New York Times Company
