Detroit Police Chief: Carjacking Risk Too High to Fill Up After Dark

Detroit Police Chief James Craig says motorists should carefully monitor their surroundings when filling up and avoid some gas stations entirely when filling up after dark. (File photo by Joe Wessels via Flickr / Creative Commons)

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How bad is Detroit’s carjacking problem?

It’s so bad that the chief of police says he wouldn’t pump gas overnight in the city if he didn’t absolutely have to, The Detroit News reports.

Detroit Police Chief James Craig made the remarks during a news conference Tuesday announcing the arrests of three suspects in a homicide and four violent carjacking attempts in a period of less than three hours early Monday morning.

Caig said that if he had to pump gas after dark, especially during the prime gas station carjacking hours of 11:30 p.m.-2 a.m., he would “probably be very aware of my surroundings,” and avoid some gas stations altogether.

It was Craig’s strongest statement to date that Detroit gas stations can be a dangerous place to be after dark, but he isn’t the first public official to publicly say it.

In an interview with The New Yorker last year for the controversial “Drop Dead, Detroit” profile, Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson reportedly said filling up at a Detroit gas station is “just a call for a carjacking.”

Unlike Patterson, Craig was almost a victim of a carjacking himself about four months after taking the Detroit police chief job in July 2013. At the time, carjacking was “almost like a way of life in Detroit,” he said.

At the height of the Great Recession in 2008, carjackings occurred at an average rate more than three a day in Detroit, earning the city the dubious distinction as America’s carjack city – a place where even getting out of a vehicle for a moment to pump fuel could turn deadly.

On Monday morning, it did.

A carjacking spree that Craig said began at 12:50 a.m. turned deadly at 2:30 a.m. when three suspects allegedly opened fire on Gregory Whitfield, 31, who had stopped for fuel at a Sunoco station in the 2300 block of Gratoit.

Whitfield tried to flee in his late-model Mustang, and was allegedly shot when the suspects pulled up alongside him. The vehicle crashed into a building across the street from the gas station.

Police implicated the three suspects in a successful carjacking at Citgo gas station in the 14800 block of East Warren at 12:50 a.m., another attempt within minutes at Grand River and Heritage, and an alleged assault at 2:20 a.m. in which they allegedly pistol whipped two victims in a carjacking attempt at St. Joseph and Mitchell.

Also on Patch:

• Oakland County Exec: I Didn’t Tell Detroit to ‘Drop Dead’
• ‘No, Not Today,’ Woman Says, Refusing to be ‘Carjack City’ Victim
• Billboard Campain: Carjacking a Straight Ride to Prison – or Death

Monday morning’s violence illustrates that, though down considerably from 2008’s record 1,231 strong-armed auto thefts, carjacking still occurs at an alarming rate in Detroit.

By 2013, the rate had declined to 701, an average of not quite two a day, and Detroit still led the nation in carjackings, the Detroit Free Press reports.

Citing police statistics, The Detroit News said carjackings so far this year are down 19 percent from 2014, and 37 percent from 2013. Through May 24, there had been 153 carjackings in Detroit.

Police Working With Gas Station Owners to Improve Safety

The arrests of the three suspects in the deadly carjack spree come on the heels of a May 18 arrests of five suspects believed to be connected to two incidents on the city’s west side. The suspects, both men and women, ranged in age from 17 to 24.

In one incident, the suspects allegedly held a 19-year-old woman at gunpoint in the 12000 block Northlawn and stole her 2010 Chevy Malibu.

In the other, a 31-year-old male said three shots were fired at him by the group that stole $300 from him before fleeing in his 2006 Ford Fusion and another vehicle – likely the Malibu from the previously alleged crime, police said.

Detroit police are making carjacking investigations a priority, especially those that target motorists stopping at gas stations for fuel.

“So far, we have put a tremendous effort into carjackings and gas station robberies,” Craig said. “Carjacking numbers have taken a tremendous drop. We are also working with gas station owners in an attempt to make their stations safer for their customers.”

Craig told The Detroit News late Tuesday that he hadn’t intended to imply that Detroit’s gas stations are unsafe; it’s just a matter of motorists being selective about their surroundings, choosing gas stations that are well lighted, and looking around to see if anyone is loitering nearby.