Members of the NOPD investigate a carjacking scene on N. Pierce St. that resulted in an elderly woman's death in New Orleans, La. Monday, March 21, 2022.
Members of the NOPD investigate a carjacking scene on N. Pierce St. that resulted in an elderly woman's death in New Orleans, La. Monday, March 21, 2022.
Hendrik Vanderwall was picking up oyster shells from Gianna restaurant in the Warehouse District early Saturday when a vehicle with dark-tinted windows rolled up alongside him. As he loaded the shells onto a trailer specially designed for his recycling business, his truck suddenly began pulling away from the curb.
"I saw he was next to my truck, and when I started getting suspicious, my truck was already moving," Vanderwall said.
The two people in the car worked quickly, with one sliding behind the wheel of the truck and driving off, and the other driving the car alongside.
Vanderwall clung to his trailer for about 30 seconds, but let go after he recalled all the carjackings that have escalated to injury, death and dismemberment in recent months.
"He was following right next to me. I felt like they had a firearm or gun with them," Vanderwall said. "I just recently had a newborn daughter, and I had to think about that. I didn't want to have a chance of getting shot."
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Hendrik Vanderwall was picking up oyster shells from Gianna restaurant in the Warehouse District early Saturday, Sept. 9 when thieves stole his truck out from under him.
Vanderwall is among the most recent crop of victims who have been targeted by carjackers and robbers looking to score a vehicle fast. After surging in 2021 and early 2022, the relentless rate of carjackings had slowed.
In August, there were 13 calls to 911 of armed carjackings. That's compared to a high of 55 in January.
But this month, calls are surging again, with seven reported carjackings or attempted carjackings on the Labor Day holiday alone.
As of Wednesday morning, police had investigated a total of 176 armed carjackings and 77 armed robberies in which the suspect stole a vehicle this year. Whether police classify an incident as an armed robbery or a carjacking depends on a number of factors, including whether the victim was removed from the vehicle.
Last year, there were 210 carjackings reported to police, a figure that was then higher than any other year in the past decade. In 2020, police responded to 204 carjackings.
The ongoing spree has altered the lives of many New Orleans residents who, like Vanderwall, had never been crime victims.
He called police reporting the incident at 7:32 a.m. Saturday, according to 911 call logs. A police spokesperson said an officer was dispatched at 8:17 a.m, but that Vanderwall had left the scene when police arrived. As a result, there was no report and no further information available, and the incident was classified as "gone on arrival."
Police have marked 23 armed carjacking calls as "gone on arrival" in 2022—more "gone on arrival" designations than any year since 2011. If those calls are added, the total number of armed carjackings sits at 199 this year.
Vanderwall said the NOPD's "gone on arrival" designation for his theft is wrong. He said he waited for four hours before giving up and filing an online report, a testament to an overburdened force with staffing levels that a report by New York consultant John Linder called "critical" in a city where the "murder rate ... is the highest in the country."
"It is extremely dangerous out here," Vanderwall said. "These thieves, they know they're not going to get caught. They know police aren't coming."
The increasingly "brazen criminal element," as NOPD Superintendent Shaun Ferguson describes it, has infiltrated all areas of the city, including Magazine Street in Uptown. At around 10 p.m. on Labor Day, Sophia and Kit Speller popped into the Monkey Hill Bar for drinks. Relative newcomers to New Orleans who moved to the city in May 2021, the husband-and-wife pair had never visited the cocktail spot and were enticed by its dim lights and couches.
They'd only taken a few sips of their gin and tonics when the mood was shattered by screams.
"I thought it was a fight, and then I heard someone say, 'Shut the door, shut the door,'" Kit Speller said.
Staff members barricaded the door with a wood plank in a swift series of movements that Sophie Speller thought seemed procedural. They warned around 10 patrons to stay away from the windows as a 31-year-old man and a 29-year-old woman ran inside, fleeing an armed carjacker.
Police said the suspect approached the man and woman, who the Spellers said were on a first date, after brandishing a weapon while two other cars blocked them in. The suspect fled in their vehicle and later crashed it in the 2700 block of Jefferson Avenue , said police, whose investigation is ongoing. They did not say whether that carjacking incident is connected to five other carjackings reported that day.
For the Spellers, the carjacking surge makes them question their decision to remain in New Orleans. For Vanderwall, it's a devastating blow to the recycling business he built with "his own blood, sweat and tears."
"You hear about it, and you just never really open your eyes until it actually happens to you," he said. "It's just really depressing. It almost makes you want to give up, but of course I can't do that."
Jeff Adelson contributed to this report.
After a brief lull, carjackings in New Orleans are surging again, leaving almost no part of the city untouched.
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