Investigators said they are trying to determine why an armed man carjacked three separate drivers within a 15-minute period Wednesday morning in southeast Atlanta, briefly kidnapping one person during a bizarre crime spree.
The strange series of events began at 10:13 a.m. when 51-year-old James Crew Jr. carjacked an AT&T employee near the intersection of Fraser Street and Georgia Avenue before driving off in their work van, Atlanta police said. Exactly 13 minutes later, police responded to a second carjacking nearby.
According to police, the Lithonia man ditched the AT&T van and stole a Nissan Pathfinder at gunpoint, taking the driver with him. He let the man out along Memorial Drive before getting out of the Pathfinder and carjacking a third driver near the intersection of Memorial and Moreland Avenue and commandeering a white Volvo SUV, Atlanta police Sgt. John Chafee said.
Credit: Channel 2 Action News
Credit: Channel 2 Action News
Police said Crew drove the Volvo to the 100 block of Dahlgren Street, where he tried to rob a pedestrian.
Joseph Thompson said he was working outside with his friend and business partner when the man stopped alongside their van and asked for a screwdriver. He then pulled out his gun and aimed it at the other man before leaving the residential street, shooting into the air as he drove off in the Volvo, Thompson told Channel 2 Action News.
“When he pointed a pistol at my partner, I thought he was going to shoot (him),” Thompson said.
Fortunately, neither man was injured.
“At some point during that robbery, he fired several shots,” Chafee said. “No one was struck and the suspect then drove to Wylie Street and Moreland Avenue where he attempted to rob another pedestrian.”
That robbery was also unsuccessful, though it apparently didn’t deter Crew, according to police. A short time later, authorities said he drove to the intersection of Moreland and Custer avenues, where he flashed the gun at a woman and ordered her into the stolen Volvo. The woman refused to get into the SUV and ran away, police said.
After that, Crew drove the Volvo onto I-75 North, where he was spotted by an officer in an unmarked patrol car and followed into Cobb County, authorities said. An APD helicopter also followed the man, who was eventually pulled over by state troopers on Roswell Road and taken into custody about 11:20 a.m. Police said a gun was recovered at the scene.
Authorities said it’s fortunate that no one was injured, but investigators aren’t sure what prompted Wednesday’s series of carjackings.
“It is obviously pretty brazen and it does beg the question of why?” Chafee said. “I’m not exactly sure what would be going through someone’s mind to make them do this.”
Crew faces nine charges, including two counts of armed robbery, two counts of hijacking a motor vehicle, two counts of aggravated assault with intent to rob, one count of false imprisonment and two counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, online jail records show. He remains held at the Fulton County Jail without bond.
The number of carjackings reported in Atlanta this year wasn’t immediately available, but Atlanta police said they investigated 156 last year and 127 in 2019. As of last month, police had investigated more than 600 auto thefts since the start of 2021, but the majority of those were the result of people leaving their cars running or their keys inside, authorities said.
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