My friend was carjacked. (Intense)

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TheArchDuke

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On around Tuesday night, a friend of mine who we'll call "Jim" was at a gas station. Some how he was talking to a man and his pregnant girlfriend/wife that he didn't know. The man mentioned having to walk a long distance so Jim offered them a ride. After a few blocks, the man indicates that he has a gun and wants my friend's car. Jim said something like "You don't have a gun." The man pulled out a knife and said "I've stabbed people before, don't be stupid." All this time the girlfriend is yelling at her boyfriend, telling him to stop what he's doing.

My friend said that somehow he knew that this guy was going to stab him even if he gave up the car so he made the decision to sock the guy in the jaw as hard as he could. So that's what he did. This is where it gets fuzzy. By now the car has stopped in the road. He grabs the hand with the knife and pulls the bad guy over his lap and they tumble out of the drivers side door. I'm not really clear on how that happened but now they're outside fighting. Apparently my friend was winning the fight so the BG tries to get into the car. As he gets up onto his hands and knees, my friend kicked him in the throat.

The bad guy gets into the car and starts to drive off. My friend actually jumps onto the side of the car and hangs on to the window. At about 40 or 50 mph, the driver is swerving so Jim decides it's time to let go or else possibly be smashed into another car. He lets go and skids on his back under a parked truck. His faces gets wedged between the tire and the ground. He suffered a fractured skull, a severe head wound, and obviously terrible road rash on both arms and back. I saw the "before" picture of him, trust me, it was awful. After he picked himself up, he ran after the BG. He saw that his car was abandoned and undamaged. A woman who saw the whole thing said "He went that way!" and pointed down a side street. My friend tried to take off after him again but by then the cops and paramedics were there and they took him to the hospital.

The bad guy got away but he was so injured that he left the car. The cops took prints and they know who he is. It's only a matter of time.

Jim is recovering and his plastic surgeon says he won't even have a scar. I think he went home last night.

I'm not really asking anyone to critique what Jim did right or wrong. It's pretty obvious. I'm just glad he's OK. Miraculously he didn't get stabbed.



Moral: DON'T PICK UP HITCH HIKERS!
 
Glad your friend will be OK. The only time I ever picked up a hitchhiker we were almost to his destination and he whipped out a brick of hashish and asked if I wanted to buy it. I pulled over and he got out voluntarily.
 
I'm really paranoid when it comes to this type of thing. As soon as I get int he car, the doors get locked, the engine gets started, and the knife goes in my lap.

Some of my friends are uncomfortable about that and ask "why do you always carry a knife, man?" I reply, "because I can't carry a gun."

Now I'll just have to remind them of what happened to "Jim."
 
I'm not really asking anyone to critique what Jim did right or wrong.
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Well, it's in strategies and tactics so there are always lessons to be learned, besides the obvious "don't let strangers into your car".....

Glad he's going to be OK.
 
True. I'm trying to think of what I would have done and the only thing I can come up with is "Not that!"

If I had the feeling that he'd let me go if I gave him the car I'd give him the car (it only cost $1000 anyway)

But my friend said he got the impression that the guy wanted to kill him either way. I don't know. Maybe I would have just bailed and ran.

What do you think?
 
I hope he makes a full recovery, that's a crazy story. The part about hanging onto the outside of the car I might leave out of my tactics file, though.
 
But my friend said he got the impression that the guy wanted to kill him either way. I don't know. Maybe I would have just bailed and ran.
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Gotta go with the gut feeling of the guy who was there.

Me, if I think they're going to kill me anyway, my plan is to attack -- immediately, viciously, and without hesitation. Who knows? I might get lucky and win.

Or at least get lucky and survive ... which is what your friend managed to do, no matter how battered he got in the process.

That's my plan anyway. Never been there yet.

pax
 
Oh yeah I forgot to mention how he's doing as of yesterday.

He's doing great. Like I said, the repairs went well and he's expected to recover fully as far as I know. I don't think there was anything serious other than the head injury. no broken limbs or internal organ damage or anything like that. I didn't see him personally but one of our other friends visited him and said he was walking around making jokes and being his normal self.
 
If we were in my Jeep, and someone in the passenger seat pulled a knife on me, I'd just say "You stab me, and I'll roll us the **** over."

Then proceed to drive to the nearest police station.
 
exactly General. IF, and it never would, that happened to me I would put the pedal all the way to the floor and tell him if he does anything other than throw the knife out the window I am going to flip the truck. I do not negotiate or run from a threat. I never have and I may be lucky I am still here but I become the aggressor in any fighting situation.
 
There is an old short story about a guy that picks up a hitcher on the highway. Hitcher pulls a gun and "hijacks" (story predates "carjacking") the car. Driver proceeds to accelerate till car is at a dangerous speed pulls a few dangerous swerves and then tells hitcher to pitch the gun out the window or he will remove the passenger side of the car on the next guardrail/bridge abutment.
 
I have two experiences with attempted car jacking...
1. An idiot was arrested after this happened but he had somehow stolen multiple cars this way. I just turned 18... mom's in passenger seat. Idiot is on side of road about 1/4 mile ahead near redlight. He waits till it turns yellow and stand in middle of road with a large gun pointing it at me and mom. Mom screams there's someone in the road, then he's got a gun. I decided I needed a new hood ornament. idiot decided he didn't need gun, dropped it and ran.

#2. while getting gas had an idiot's cousin come up to me when i filling up with gas. Pull a screw driver and says give your wallet or i'll stab you.. He gets a face full of gas... (ever feel how bad gas feels from a drop in eyes?) and then sorta punt his, well i'm sure he wasn't goin to breed anyways. And then cops WHO WERE AT THE SAME GAS STATION come and arrest him. They saw him do it. It was on tape. And later found out that the screwdriver had blood on it. I never even had to testify in court.

That being said. I have two rules if i ever pick up hitch hikers. #1 they sit in the front seat. #2 either i or my friend is in the back seat behind them ... armed. I have been in situations where it hit the fan and needed help. I have hopped a ride in the back of a pick up when I had the choice of 15 miles to the nearest exit.

Overall ... you're friend had good karma and he kept his cool.
 
My sympathies to the OP and his friend.

I am the kind of person that picks up hitch hikers in certain circumstances. Crappy weather, out in the middle of nowhere, leaning on the "hitchhikers may be escaped convicts sign", things like that. :neener:

This is my strategy.
I only pick up when I have a friend in the vehicle with me. The friend sits in the back seat, firearms concealed. It never comes out and is never mentioned if there is no problem. HH-er rides in the front passenger seat. We go on our way, have a nice decent conversation sometimes, and I drop the person off. I have never had a problem using this method.
 
If the person gets the drop on me with a knife or gun they get the car, as long as it is just me in it with no family onboard. Getting sliced can get you killed just about as quick as getting shot.

Of course, they might not get to keep it long, because as I exit the vehicle mouthing soothing phrases the carry piece is coming out.
 
Mistake #2 - jumping on the car when it was speeding away.
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I certainly agree with this one.

I don't think giving them a ride was a mistake (of course it was in hindsight). Helping a guy and his pregnant GF is probably a pretty safe bet and I like that people still help others. Maybe there were some signals he could have read better...we'll probably never know. Glad he's gonna be OK.
 
I've done far stupider things than give a ride to a pregnant girl (and her boyfriend). Fighting and wrestling for the knife? Sounds fine, if you're got the stones for that kind of thing. Jumping on the car was kind of dumb, though. Oh well, another day in the life. He's still alive, he's got a car, and now he's got a good story, too.
 
Actually hitchhiking is not as dangerous as we think it is according to some people I know. A good example of this is author William Upski Wimsatt's experience when he wrote his book "Bomb The Suburbs" in which he hitchhikes across the country and visits various ghettos and barrios to prove that these neighborhoods are not bad places and that many people have a negative view of the world.
 
The last hitch-hikers I know of that got picked up in my town killed the driver and torn body parts off his corpse.

YMMV

I put this guy under "Doing stupid things" which is a good way to get hurt. I doubt he realizes how lucky he is.
 
Helping a guy and his pregnant GF is probably a pretty safe bet and I like that people still help others.
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You mean stopping for the carjacker and his accomplice with a pillow under her blouse?

I've stopped to help people but there's so much potential for things turning out badly that it's hard to justify it.

Even if everything goes well, there's still the potential for after-action problems. I recall reading about a guy who picked up a girl who appeared to have been beaten up. He drove her home. Turns out her boyfriend had beaten her up but she didn't want to get him in trouble so, when questioned, she blamed it on the good samaritan.
Actually hitchhiking is not as dangerous as we think it is according to some people I know.
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Don't know about hitchHIKING, but picking up hitchHIKERS isn't exactly a low-risk activity.
 
Dang! Too much like TV and I'm glad I'm not Jim. If kicked in the throat, the robber's throat might swell internally and if he didn't seek medical care for a tracheonomy or a breathing tube, he could be dead.
 
There's no rules to picking up hitch hikers, you just don't do it, period. It's fine to want to do nice things for people possibly down on their luck but one must also remember that many dirtbags out there actually prey on people who help other people who are down on their luck. Don't put yourself in harm's way and the possibilities of actually being harmed go down more than significantly.
 
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