SLIDELL, La. — Slidell Police see a commonality in a series of carjackings this past week that struck victims in Orleans, Jefferson, and St. Tammany parishes.
According to the Slidell Police office, New Orleans in particular has seen a recent string of carjackings, including seven carjackings or armed robberies of cars in about a 12-hour span earlier this week.
The Slidell Police believe that one of the carjacked vehicles, an Audi, that was taken in a reported New Orleans carjacking, was used Tuesday night to commit a carjacking at a fast food drive-thru on Old Spanish Trail.
In that incident, a man who pulled up to a fast food window in a Hyundai to order food saw the Audi pull in front of him and stop and three gunmen got out, surrounded the car, and demanded he get out. The victim complied and the carjackers drove off in the two vehicles.
The victim told officers that he had a tracking device on his phone, which was in the Hyundai and police tracked it down to a gas station on Michoud Blvd. in New Orleans East.
The suspects spotted officers and sped off into a nearby neighborhood before crashing the victim's Hyundai and then fleeing on foot. As of early Friday, those suspects had not been captured.
However, Slidell Police believe the use of a carjacked vehicle to carjack another showed that it is likely an organized group participating in the crimes.
Thursday evening another carjacking near the Orleans/Jefferson parish line also rang familiar, the Slidell Police said. A 16-year-old and another suspect carjacked a vehicle which was tracked to Behrman Park in Algiers where police say the suspects engaged in a shootout with Jefferson Parish deputies and the 16-year-old was shot in the leg.
"We're obviously very interested in that particular incident because we believe that is also tied to the Slidell carjacking as well as the ones in New Orleans," said Slidell Police spokesman Daniel Seuzeneau.
According to Seuzeneau, the carjackers made a major mistake by trying to commit a crime in Slidell.
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