DC Man, 22, Gets 13 Years After 85-Minute Robbery Rampage in Ward 8

A 22-year-old D.C. man was sentenced to 13 and a half years in prison for a violent two-day spree that began with the carjacking of a DoorDash driver and ended with a high-speed police chase through Maryland and back into the District. Dartanian Owens pointed a gun at a food delivery driver, then held up three more people at gunpoint the following morning, including a man on his way to a dialysis appointment. He eventually jumped from the moving stolen vehicle and tried to hide behind sheds and porches before officers ran him down on foot.

D.C. Superior Court Judge Andrea Herzfeld handed down the 162-month sentence, matching what prosecutors had recommended, according to WJLA. Owens pleaded guilty in April 2025 to carjacking, possession of a firearm during a crime of violence, robbery, and carrying a pistol without a license. Assistant U.S. Attorney Eliot Folsom prosecuted the case, which was investigated by the MPD Carjacking Task Force along with other Metropolitan Police Department officers and detectives.

An 85-Minute Robbery Run Through Ward 7 and Ward 8

The spree began on April 6, 2025, when Owens used a firearm to carjack a DoorDash driver who was making a food delivery in Northeast Washington, per prosecutors. The following morning, between 4:05 a.m. and 5:20 a.m., he used the stolen vehicle to commit three armed robberies across Southeast D.C., according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia. The first robbery happened at a bus stop outside 2701 Naylor Road SE, where Owens pointed a pink and silver handgun at a victim and demanded, “lay it down.”

He then robbed a man walking to the Anacostia Metro station who was on his way to work, stealing AirPods, cash and a phone. Minutes later, Owens and an accomplice targeted a man waiting for an Uber to a dialysis appointment. When the dialysis patient had nothing else to surrender, the accomplice took his backpack at gunpoint, making off with a bag containing construction tools, keys, a phone, a wallet, cash and identification.

A Chase Across State Lines Ends on Foot

Prince George's County police spotted the carjacked vehicle at a Maryland McDonald's on April 8, 2025, and attempted to stop it. Owens fled through Maryland and back into the District as officers pursued him, at one point driving 44 mph above the speed limit through a residential neighborhood. Officers eventually used spike strips to disable the vehicle, but Owens jumped out while it was still moving and tried to escape on foot, hiding behind homes, on porches and behind sheds.

Police arrested him after a foot pursuit and say he gave officers a false name. In the 3200 block of Highwood Drive SE, officers seized a Springfield Armory 9mm handgun and charged him with carrying a pistol without a license and fleeing law enforcement while armed, according to the Metropolitan Police Department. Investigators also recovered a black and pink Walther PK380 handgun and a key fob belonging to the carjacked vehicle. Notably, Owens had already had a run-in with police in the same block just days earlier — MPD arrested him there on April 4, 2025, for unauthorized use of a vehicle, only four days before the violent spree began.

Judge Rejects Youth Sentencing Break

Because Owens was just 21 when he committed the crimes, he was legally eligible to be considered under D.C.'s Youth Rehabilitation Act, which permits judges to impose sentences below statutory mandatory minimums for eligible offenders under 25 and seal their records upon successful completion of release conditions, as explained by DC Witness. Judge Herzfeld declined to sentence Owens under that act, instead imposing the 162-month term prosecutors had sought. The District of Columbia Sentencing Commission has separately evaluated YRA eligibility for violent offenses including carjacking, armed carjacking, and armed robbery from 2022 through 2024, underscoring how frequently federal prosecutors contest youth-act eligibility in cases involving guns.

The case also had a tense pretrial moment: during a February 2026 hearing, Herzfeld refused to let Owens formally reject a prosecution plea offer because he had not yet reviewed all the video evidence with his defense attorney, according to the same outlet's report. Rejecting that plea offer would have exposed Owens to a 20-year mandatory minimum if he had gone to trial and been convicted. Owens has remained in custody since his arrest.

Part of a Broader Crackdown on DC Carjackings

Owens' sentencing lands amid a steep, multi-year decline in D.C. carjackings tied to district-wide task force operations. Monthly carjackings fell 78% between June 2023, when there were 140 incidents, and June 2024, when there were 31, per the U.S. Attorney's Office. That progress follows years in which clearance rates lagged badly behind the scale of the problem: MPD records from 2020 through early 2024 showed only 27% of documented carjackings resulted in an arrest or closure, with minors aged 12 to 17 accounting for 63% of carjacking arrestees, per DC Witness.

The sentencing also comes as federal prosecutors have ramped up violent crime filings across the District, with more than 16,700 cases charged in D.C. Superior Court by August 2026 coinciding with a drop in overall violent crime, according to CBS News. Separately, a July 2026 D.C. Inspector General report found a breakdown in internal controls for MPD's crime statistics collection system dating back to 2015, and recommended an independent audit unit, though the review did not find evidence of intentional fraud.

Owens is the latest in a string of young D.C. men sentenced this year for violent carjacking and robbery sprees. Hoodline has previously reported on a 15-year sentence for a multi-jurisdictional spree ringleader, as well as a 12-year sentence for a teenager convicted in a separate bus-stop robbery and carjacking case.