A carjacking outside a Glen Burnie Taco Bell left an adult male victim and a bystander who tried to help both injured Wednesday morning, after a suspect forced the man from his vehicle in the drive-thru lane and sped off, striking both men as he fled. The suspect remains at large, and police have not identified him publicly.
Anne Arundel County Police officers were dispatched around 11:10 a.m. to the Taco Bell in the 6600 block of Ritchie Highway after reports of the carjacking, according to WBFF. Police say the case was quickly handed to the department's Regional Crimes Unit, a specialized team that handles complex property and violent crimes across county police districts, according to the Anne Arundel County Police Department.
According to the county police account, the suspect arrived at the restaurant in a vehicle with his ex-girlfriend and began acting erratically before getting out and approaching another car waiting in the drive-thru line. He then forcibly removed the victim from that vehicle, put it in reverse, and fled the scene. As he drove away, the stolen car struck both the victim and a witness who had tried to intervene, and both men suffered minor injuries; the victim was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.
Suspect Last Seen Crossing Into Baltimore
Police say the suspect was last spotted driving on I-695 in the Brooklyn Park area, a route that offers a quick escape from the Ritchie Highway corridor toward Baltimore City. Officers later located the stolen car, a 2009 Toyota Corolla, unoccupied on North Kenwood Drive in Baltimore, but the suspect himself has not been found. Detectives have since spoken with the adult male victim and with the suspect's ex-girlfriend as the investigation continues, though officials have not said whether her account has helped identify him.
It remains unclear what additional charges the suspect could face beyond carjacking, such as assault or hit-and-run, and police have not released an update on the hospitalized victim's condition. Under Maryland Criminal Law § 3-405, carjacking is a felony punishable by up to 30 years in prison, and prosecutors do not need to prove the suspect intended to permanently keep the vehicle to secure a conviction, per Maryland Code and Court Rules — a detail that could matter given the Corolla was found abandoned just a short drive from where it was stolen.
A Corridor With a Recent History of Violence
The stretch of Ritchie Highway where the Taco Bell sits has seen other violent commercial crime this month; on August 4, two suspects stole merchandise from a nearby Dick's Sporting Goods and one used a Taser on an employee, according to The BayNet. The highway has also been the scene of prior carjackings, including a July 2025 incident in which a suspect forced a driver from her car at a Brooklyn gas station before crashing the stolen Lexus during a police pursuit, per county police records.
Wednesday's incident is at least the third carjacking Anne Arundel County Police have investigated this month alone, following an armed carjacking in Severn on August 17 and a knifepoint carjacking in Laurel two days later. Even so, county officials reported in January that carjackings across Anne Arundel dropped 27% in 2025, falling to 16 reported cases from 22 the year before, a decline officials attributed to data-driven policing and technology investments. The department's Real Time Information Center, launched in mid-2024, uses automated license plate readers and drone networks to help detectives track stolen vehicles that cross into Baltimore, as it appears investigators may be doing in this case.
The incident remains under active investigation. Anyone with information is asked to contact Anne Arundel County Police at 410-222-4730, or to reach the department's tip line anonymously at 410-222-4700.
-4.webp?w=160&h=400&fit=crop&crop=edges)