Carjack suspects at large after causing scare on Emory campus

Police investigate after carjacking suspects abandoned a stolen vehicle at an Emory Univeristy parking deck. JOHN SPINK/JSPINK@AJC.COM

Police investigate after carjacking suspects abandoned a stolen vehicle at an Emory Univeristy parking deck. JOHN SPINK/JSPINK@AJC.COM

DeKalb County police continue to look for two carjacking suspects who abandoned a stolen Jeep on the Emory University campus before daybreak, prompting college officials to issue an alert asking students to “shelter in place” for about 45 minutes.

The university tweeted at 5:30 a.m. Tuesday that there was “a police emergency occurring on Emory main campus…Shelter in place.”

Another tweet 45 minutes later read, “There was a carjacking with perpetrators chased onto Emory campus. DeKalb police and Emory police on scene, event now all clear.”

The predawn police activity was centered in a parking deck across from the George W. Woodruff Physical Education Center.

DeKalb police spokeswoman Mekka Parish said the carjacking happened about 3:45 a.m. in the 700 block of North Indian Creek Drive. Two men reported to police that they were sitting in a Jeep Wrangler when they were approached by two teenage boys dressed in all black and armed with handguns, Parish said.

“The males robbed the victims of personal belongings and then ordered them out of the vehicle,” Parish said in an email. “The two suspects then fled in the Jeep Wrangler.”

Parish said officers spotted the Jeep minutes later on Memorial Drive near Memorial College Avenue.

“Officers attempted to stop the vehicle and it fled on Memorial Drive to North Decatur and continued turning right on Haygood Drive, where officers lost sight of the vehicle,” she said.

The Jeep was later found abandoned on Eagle Row on the Emory campus.

“A perimeter was established and search conducted for the suspects with the assistance of K9,” Parish said. “The suspects were not located.”