Two attempted carjackers were thwarted in their criminal endeavor after realizing they didn’t know how to drive a car with manual transmission.
The Montgomery County Police Department said they were called to a Sunoco gas station in Germantown, Maryland, on Saturday at about 4:36 p.m. over the incident.
Investigators found that a victim had just finished pumping gas into his car at the station when two teenagers began running towards him. Though he tried to close his car door, they forced it open and then dragged him out of the car.
Once inside it took them just a few seconds to realize that they wouldn’t be able to drive the car away because it had a manual transmission.
Surveillance video from the gas station showed the entire altercation.
Police said they were able to identify two teenagers minutes later on the same road, and they attempted to apprehend them. Although the two tried to run away, police caught up to them and arrested the 16-year-old juvenile from Rockville and a 17-year-old juvenile from Washington, D.C.
Both were transported to the Montgomery County Central Processing unit, where they were charged with one count of carjacking and one count of conspiracy carjacking. They were charged as adults and held without bond.
A similar incident was reported in 2014 when three men attempted to carjack a 70-year-old woman in Seattle, Washington, after she returned from a garage sale and was putting items into her Kia vehicle. She threw the keys on the ground, and they piled into the car but ditched it moments later when they also realized they only knew how to drive an automatic transmission.
“They can’t drive a stick?” said one her neighbors at the time. “That’s like … unmanly!”
Here’s a local news report about the incident:
Police: Teens who carjacked man at gas station couldn’t drive away due to manual transmissionwww.youtube.com
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