Photo: flickr.com
For two parents in Phoenix, Arizona, the message authorities have been trying to convey for a very long time had been received loud and clear: never leave your car engine running and your doors unlocked.
However, to get the message, they first had to endure 15 minutes of nightmare, when their 8-year-old daughter Zi’ariah was taken with the car by a carjacker, as they were out in the parking lot, chatting. The Barkers are no longer married and they had met for a regular custody exchange.
The mother was dropping the girl off, but first, she went to talk to her ex-husband out in the parking lot. She left the child inside, with the engine running and the doors unlocked, thinking she would be gone only for a few seconds. For a car thief, those few seconds were all the time he needed.
The parents got to watch as a stranger jumped into the mother’s car and took off with the child inside, Chacobe Barket, the father, tells AZ Family. “I was shocked. I was livid, and I wanted to get him,” he admits.
He jumped into his van with his current wife and they went after the carjacker in the car with the child. They soon lost trace of him, but they found the girl about 2 miles farther, where he’d dropped her. Barker says the whole thing lasted about 15 minutes, “but it felt like hours.”
Police also recovered the car later, but they’re still to have a suspect in custody. They’re looking for a white man with heavily tattooed arms and deep acne scars on his face.
Barker, for one, says he’s learned his lesson: he will never leave the engine running and the doors unlocked on his car, and he will make sure no one else he knows does either. “You just gotta keep your head on a swivel,” he tells the publication.
The mother was dropping the girl off, but first, she went to talk to her ex-husband out in the parking lot. She left the child inside, with the engine running and the doors unlocked, thinking she would be gone only for a few seconds. For a car thief, those few seconds were all the time he needed.
The parents got to watch as a stranger jumped into the mother’s car and took off with the child inside, Chacobe Barket, the father, tells AZ Family. “I was shocked. I was livid, and I wanted to get him,” he admits.
He jumped into his van with his current wife and they went after the carjacker in the car with the child. They soon lost trace of him, but they found the girl about 2 miles farther, where he’d dropped her. Barker says the whole thing lasted about 15 minutes, “but it felt like hours.”
Police also recovered the car later, but they’re still to have a suspect in custody. They’re looking for a white man with heavily tattooed arms and deep acne scars on his face.
Barker, for one, says he’s learned his lesson: he will never leave the engine running and the doors unlocked on his car, and he will make sure no one else he knows does either. “You just gotta keep your head on a swivel,” he tells the publication.
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