Coincidence or trend? Spokane has seen an anomalous number of carjackings this month

Spokane-area law enforcement agencies are well aware of the city’s issue with car thieves. It’s why Mayor David Condon announced in February the Spokane Police Department’s new motor vehicle theft task force that would focus on combating the growing problem.

But it would appear there’s a new car-related nuisance lurking the pothole-ridden streets: a car thief who not only steals your car, but does so while you’re still in it. And if you’re not in it, takes it from you forcibly.

Since July 3, there have been four violent car robberies or carjackings in the Spokane area, three of which appear to be random. Two happened to women while they were still in their cars, and another two involved violent robberies where people were either injured or held hostage before a thief escaped with their vehicle.

While not yet ready to call the series a trend, Spokane police Capt. Brad Arleth said that the first half of July was something of an anomaly for car-related robberies, especially since July so far has just five fewer carjackings than all of the months in 2016 combined.

“Certainly looking at these cases, they’re all separate,” he said in an interview last week. “They’re not the same suspect or group of suspects, and they’re not in the same area. If they were, we would call them a trend.”

Since 2014, carjackings have fallen steadily – from their high of 21 – to 15 in 2015 and nine in 2016, according to data provided by the Spokane Police Department. So far in 2017, there have been 10 carjackings – four of which happened in the two-week span in July.

The first one in July happened to a barista who was headed home from work the afternoon of July 3. While at a stoplight in downtown Spokane, she said a woman walked up to her car, opened her door and demanded she get out. She was eventually ripped from the driver’s seat, but her foot got stuck under the seat, and she was dragged a short distance before her foot came loose.

The carjacker, 20-year-old Tamara N. Hayes, was arrested shortly after on Interstate 90 going close to 90 mph near the Highway 2 exit west of Spokane.

Three days later, a woman who was sleeping in her car in northwestern Spokane during the early morning hours was told to give up her car by a man wielding a knife. Police believe that attack was also random. They set up a perimeter and searched the area but were unable to locate him.

Then, on July 10, police told KHQ News that a man was pistol-whipped before having his SUV stolen from his driveway in northwestern Spokane. But that incident appeared to be between two people who knew each other, police said.

Just two days after that, a man told police he was held hostage in his condo by Joshua D. Trudeau, 32, who was on the run from police after they spotted him acting suspicious near a stolen car that was being recovered. He allegedly broke into the man’s north Spokane condo and held him at knifepoint while he drank his beverages, used his cellphone and shot up drugs before taking the resident’s rented car.

Police arrested Trudeau days later with the help of a police K-9.

Arleth, who’s been with the department for 25 years, said general motor vehicle theft is a big issue for the city, which is why the department made it a priority this year when it created the task force. Arleth said the force – comprised of the department’s Anti-Crime Team, Targeted Crimes Unit and Chronic Offender Unit – has made noticeable gains on finding and arresting chronic offenders.

“We’ve made a number of outstanding arrests of suspects that were very heavily into vehicle theft of certain types of cars,” he said.

But when it comes to thefts of vehicles with people still inside or thefts of people’s cars while they’re nearby – both of which would be considered robbery – those numbers are generally much lower, so it’s not something the department often sees, Arleth said.

Take, for example, Spokane’s motor vehicle theft rate according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting statistics: In 2014, the latest year for which data is available, the SPD reported 1,062 thefts per 100,000 people. That means the average person in Spokane city limits, if taking the data at face value, would have about a 1 percent chance of having their car stolen.

For carjackings, that number is much smaller, even for 2014, when the rate was the highest in the past three years. Back then, an average resident would have about a 0.009847 percent chance of being a carjacking victim.

Which is why Arleth theorizes the recent jump in car robberies and carjackings could be attributed to circumstance, the warm weather lending itself to more travel by car, and coincidence, rather than a trend.

“Looking at the suspects in of all of these, there’s some serious drug and mental health issues on the part of the suspects,” Arleth said. “They just happened to be grouped at a point in time.”

Still, Deputy John O’Brien, spokesman for the SPD, said people should take the proper precaution to limit likelihood of a carjacking or robbery, by sitting in the vehicle with the doors locked and developing a habit of being aware of their surroundings.

He recommended that if anyone is approaching the car, to use instinct and trust if something doesn’t feel right.

“It’s not something we get every day,” he said. “It’s not something we get every week. But it obviously raises concern for citizens and for us and we take that seriously.”