Carjacked (page 3 of 5)

Roadblocks and Stop Sticks

Then she turned into oncoming traffic, flailing her arms at passing cars. "A man pulled me out of my car," she cried. "My children are in the car. Help me. Help me get my kids!"

Shiflett watched the thief wrench the woman from the front seat and throw her to the asphalt. She jumped up like a prizefighter and ran to her SUV's back door. His cop's instinct kicked in: There was only one reason a woman would take that kind of risk. "There are kids in that car," he said to his partner, a lump forming in his throat. Now the carjacker turned toward Baltimore, headed back the way he had come. The pilot pushed the aircraft's speed to the maximum of about 140 mph. Even so, the Mercedes SUV nearly pulled ahead of the copter.

As the sky darkened, the lead detective at the crime scene inspected the spot on River Road where the carjacking had taken place, then moved police operations to a nearby fire station. He remembered another carjacking that had happened in a neighboring county several years back. A child had been in that car too; it had ended tragically.

The detective stepped out of Marna Plaia's hearing range to monitor radio transmissions from the ground pursuit. They had to get these babies back safely. After 30 years on the job, it would be more than he could handle if anything happened to them.

The distraught young mother, joined by her husband and family members, waited in stunned silence amid all the buzzing activity at the firehouse.

Then the police got a break: The SUV was equipped with TeleAid, a satellite tracking system that could not only pinpoint the SUV's position, but allowed the TeleAid dispatcher to hear everything happening inside the vehicle. The dispatcher, who was listening in, reported that the carjacker had asked the children if their mommy had a cell phone. If the carjacker was talking to Paul and Edie, that probably meant they were still okay. The one thing TeleAid couldn't do was patch police in to talk to the driver directly.

Police departments throughout the area began setting up roadblocks wherever it seemed likely that the carjacker might try to flee.

State police trooper David Marshall got the call at the barracks in Annapolis: Respond to the South River crossover at Route 50 eastbound near the Prince George's County line and stand by for further details.

He met his supervisor at the designated place, and was told that marked squad cars would set up a roadblock across two of the three lanes. Marshall's car was unmarked. If the carjacker ran the roadblock, Marshall was to disable the car with a stop stick.

Stop sticks are flexible pipes with hollow spikes inside that attach to and pierce the tires of any car that runs over them. Once pierced, tires lose air through the spikes and slowly go flat. The stick is attached to a line that lets the officer cast it almost as he would a fishing rod. If all went as planned, the device would disable the vehicle with no one getting injured.

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