The ambushing and carjacking of a Papa John’s pizza delivery driver in the upscale River Oaks neighborhood of Houston, Texas perfectly illustrates a dangerous criminal trend. We’ve seen stories like this one for years and want to keep delivery drivers as well as everyone else aware of the danger.
16 shot, 2 fatally, during Tennessee street takeover.
Before the 20-year-old Papa John’s employee showed up at the address specified on the order, there were suspects walking up and down the street, ensuring everything was just so, all of it captured on a home’s surveillance cameras.
Then as the driver arrived and got out of his car, the suspects pounced. ABC13 says in its coverage the delivery driver was pistol whipped, then his car was stolen and he was left to stagger off down the sidewalk by himself.
Exactly how the 20-year-old is doing isn’t known. ABC13 says it reached out to Papa John’s but an update on the driver’s status wasn’t provided by the company. We hope he’s okay.
We’ve seen this trick of making an order from a delivery service, be it pizza, Uber Eats, or whatever else. Sometimes they’ll use a random address, like in this case, and other times they’ll choose somewhere that’s vacant.
While in this attack the suspects physically assaulted the delivery driver, we’ve seen some cases where they hide and hop in the running car as the driver runs up to the door. Sometimes they just hold the victim at gunpoint, taking their keys, phone, and anything else valuable before making their escape.
Ultimately, this incident in Houston serves as a reminder there are those who will lure delivery drivers somewhere only to rob and carjack them. There are ways to help guard against this, something we hope companies are looking to put into place.
Image via ABC13 Houston/YouTube
Follow The Auto Wire on Google News.
+ There are no comments
Add yours