Three men are wanted after police say they used a machete to carjack a driver in broad daylight on F Street SE, assaulting her before speeding off in her stolen 2020 green Ford Escape. Metropolitan Police Department officers were dispatched to the scene just before 4 p.m. Wednesday for a reported armed carjacking, according to police.
The suspects attacked the victim, took her property, and fled in her vehicle, which carries Maryland tag C22153CM, as reported by WJLA. Police describe the suspects as three Black males between 20 and 30 years old, last seen wearing dark clothing, with one of the men armed with the machete used in the attack. It remains unclear whether the victim suffered serious physical injuries during the assault.
Anyone with information is asked to call 202-727-9099 or text 50411, per the station's report. The Metropolitan Police Department typically offers a standard cash reward of up to $10,000 for tips leading to an arrest and conviction in violent crimes like armed carjackings, though it has not yet confirmed whether that reward applies to this specific case.
An Unusual Weapon In A City Where Carjackings Are Falling
A machete is a comparatively rare weapon in D.C. carjackings, which more typically involve handguns. MPD's own account of an April incident in the 2100 block of Savannah Terrace SE, in which a suspect stabbed a female driver with a knife before stealing and crashing her car, shows that edged-weapon carjackings do surface in Southeast D.C. from time to time, though they remain less common than gun-involved cases.
The F Street SE attack comes even as carjackings across the District have plunged. The Council on Criminal Justice reported that carjackings in D.C. dropped 63% during the first half of 2026 compared to the same period a year earlier, making it one of the steepest-falling violent crime categories in the city. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia has credited part of that decline to an expanded federal law enforcement surge deployed in August 2025, reporting a 64% drop in carjackings over the following 12 months alongside a 67% increase in D.C. Superior Court charging rates.
Who Typically Commits These Crimes
MPD's daily crime statistics, updated through Tuesday, show motor vehicle thefts citywide have fallen 53% year-over-year, from 2,925 incidents in 2025 to 1,388 so far in 2026, with total property crime down 23% over the same stretch. Data from D.C. Witness published in October 2025 found that young people accounted for 72% of all prosecuted carjackings in the District, with those aged 18 to 24 making up half of offenders and juveniles another 22% — a demographic profile roughly consistent with the ages police have assigned to the three men sought in this case.
What Suspects Could Face If Caught
If arrested and convicted, the suspects would face steep mandatory penalties. Under D.C. Code § 22-2803, armed carjacking carries a mandatory minimum of 15 years in prison and a maximum of up to 40 years, compared with a 7-year mandatory minimum for unarmed carjacking, according to Koehler Law. D.C. case law, established in Beaner v. United States, requires prosecutors to show the vehicle or keys were taken from the victim's immediate actual possession — the area within which she could reasonably exercise control over the property — to sustain an armed carjacking charge.
Because the stolen Ford Escape bears Maryland plates, federal prosecutors could potentially claim jurisdiction if interstate transit is established. Federal carjacking statutes under 18 U.S.C. § 2119, per the U.S. Department of Justice, allow sentences of up to 15 years, or up to life imprisonment if serious bodily injury or death results. The D.C. Sentencing Commission has found that 96% of adult carjacking convictions in the District result in a guideline-compliant prison term, one of the highest incarceration rates among violent felony offenses in D.C. courts.
This is the latest in a string of armed carjacking cases Hoodline has tracked in the District this year, including an 18-year-old sentenced over a gunpoint Jetta theft earlier this month. It is not yet known whether MPD's Carjacking Task Force has linked the three men wanted in the F Street SE attack to any other recent robberies in the area, and police have not said whether surveillance footage has been recovered along the corridor.
