As carjackings in the District continue their frightening pace, one that occurred last month near Union Station in Northeast Washington stood out.
A Mercedes-Benz was taken at knifepoint with a woman and her 11-month-old child inside. She begged to be let out with her infant and punched the assailant, her screams for help heard down the block.
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Police said the man pushed her back into the vehicle and sped off, the passenger door still open, as he warned, “Keep screaming and I’m going to stab you.”
The man stopped a few blocks away and let the mother and infant out, largely unharmed.
Police said they found the Mercedes-Benz a day after the Feb. 2 attack abandoned at a gas station in Hyattsville.
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Inside, along with a kitchen knife, chips and soda, police said they found a seemingly innocuous but recognizable piece of clothing that would eventually lead to an arrest: a light-blue hoodie with an image of the Cookie Monster on the front, and the phrase “still fresh” written underneath the Sesame Street character.
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The carjacking occurred during an evening commute near Fourth and H streets, the top edge of Capitol Hill, and attracted widespread attention.
The driver, and father of the child, had parked to run into a store, leaving the car running and emergency flashers blinking.
A Ring doorbell camera captured the mother screaming. Her cries as she fought for her child were broadcast later on television newscasts. Efforts to reach the victim were not successful.
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Carjackings have soared in the region over the past two years, jumping from 142 in the District in 2019 to 426 last year. Numbers are still climbing in the city with 115 through mid-March, up from 92 this time in 2021.
Someone tapped on his car window, then pointed a gun. It was yet another carjacking in the D.C. region
For police, their first break in the Capitol Hill case came when the stolen vehicle was found. Detectives reviewed surveillance video from the gas station and saw a man near the vehicle, walking with a limp and a Cookie Monster hoodie draped over his shoulders.
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On Feb. 4, police said, an anonymous caller reached out to a tip line and said a man had tried to sell him the Mercedes-Benz over social media for $4,500. He didn’t have a name, but he provided police an Instagram account and a cellphone number.
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A detective, police said, reviewed the Instagram account and found a nickname and a birthday greeting dated Dec. 9, 2020: “Old enough to know better, young enough to do it anyway. Keep reading the book we only on chapter 28.”
Police, according to court records, deduced the man turned 28 years old on Dec. 9, 2020, and some simple math revealed what investigators believed to be a birth date: Dec. 9, 1992.
A search of a police database revealed a man with that birth date who had an encounter with law enforcement on Feb. 1 in Southeast Washington, according to court records.
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That man’s birthday matched the birthday from the Instagram posting, and according to an arrest affidavit filed in court, resembled the person seen on the video from the gas station. He even walked with a limp.
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Now police had a possible name.
The detective then reviewed the body-camera video from the officer who had talked to the man during the Feb. 1 encounter.
According to the court affidavit, the man was wearing a light-blue Cookie Monster hoodie.
Police gathered additional evidence and talked to more people. On Tuesday, authorities arrested 29-year-old Rashan Hairston of Northeast Washington and charged him with armed kidnapping.
The arrest affidavit lists his birthday as Dec. 12, 1992, making him 28 years old, like the person from the birthday greeting on Instagram.
Hairston, whose name is also spelled Harriston in some court documents, has been ordered detained with a hearing set for March 24. His attorney, Damon Catacalos, declined to comment.