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PD: 13-year-old carjacker may be repeat offender

Posted at 1:20 PM, Feb 12, 2016
and last updated 2016-02-12 23:50:04-05

CINCINNATI – When a 13-year-old boy carjacked a cab at gunpoint and crashed it after a police chase Friday morning, it wasn't the first time he swiped a car, police said.

"We believe he may have committed another auto robbery yesterday. He fits the description and there is also video," said District 3 Supervisor Sgt. Tom Coombs.

The young robber approached the female cab driver at the Shell station at Harrison and McHenry avenues in Westwood and pointed a pellet gun at her, according to police. The cab driver, who is disabled, said she couldn't get out of the car without her walker, so the boy got the walker out of the trunk before driving off.

Fifteen minutes later, police spotted the stolen cab and the chase was on. The boy hit a few parked cars before hitting a wall at Baltimore Avenue and Beekman Street in North Fairmount and coming to a stop, according to police

Coombs said police found the pellet gun in the car.

"If I saw it, if the gun was pointed in my direction, I would have assumed it was real," Coombs said.

WCPO spoke exclusively with the driver of that cab, Christine Stillwell, who said in her 16 years of driving cabs on and off, she's been robbed before, but never like this.

"He took the gun, put it to my temple, and said, 'Get (the other passenger) out of the car,'" she told WCPO. 

The teen then ordered Stillwell out of the car. Stillwell told him that she needed her walker if she was to get out.

"He said, 'Pop the trunk,' so I hit the button and he held the gun out while we went and got my walker," she said. "I was trying to get out and I wasn't getting out fast enough, so he yanked my arm real hard.

"As I was moving, he jumped in the car and he almost hit me with the car as he pulled away."

Now, Stillwell is worried how she will provide for her family.

"Now I have no job, no way to support my kids, no way to pay my rent, nothing," she said. "I'm screwed."

The boy police suspect is responsible was in custody Friday night.

As for Stillwell, she said she’s eager to get back on the road as soon as possible.