Two people forced a driver out of their car at gunpoint in a Hartford McDonald's parking lot Tuesday night, striking the victim with a firearm before driving off — only for the stolen vehicle to turn up crashed a short time later, according to police.
Hartford police officers were dispatched around 11:43 p.m. to a carjacking at the McDonald's parking lot on Albany Avenue, according to Hartford Police Lt. Aaron Boisvert, as reported by CT Insider. The victim told officers that two individuals approached while they were sitting in the parking lot, then forced them out of the car, Boisvert said. One of the two suspects hit the victim with a firearm before the pair drove off in the victim's car, per the lieutenant's account.
The McDonald's sits at 1303 Albany Avenue, a 24-hour drive-thru location in Hartford, according to McDonald's. The stolen car was located crashed shortly after at the intersection of Woodland and Sargeant streets, Boisvert said. The crash remains under investigation, per the same police account.
A Commercial Strip With a History of Violent Vehicle Thefts
This isn't the first time the Albany Avenue corridor has seen a violent carjacking. In September 2024, Hartford police investigated a case in which a woman was stabbed multiple times in the 600 block of Albany Avenue before her attacker fled in her vehicle, according to a report from Fox 61. The 1303 Albany Avenue McDonald's lot itself has also surfaced in past carjacking investigations — in January 2020, West Hartford and Hartford police tracked a stolen vehicle to that same parking lot following a struggle between victims and suspects during a carjacking in neighboring West Hartford, with three juveniles arrested at the scene, according to We-Ha's earlier reporting on that incident.
Tuesday's robbery also fits into a broader pattern of armed vehicle takeovers across Hartford County in recent weeks. Hoodline reported on an armed carjacking near New Britain three days earlier, in which one member of the group was armed and a vehicle was taken on West Main Street before the group fled toward Plainville. The cities of Hartford, New Haven, and Bridgeport account for roughly 40 percent of the state's total reported violent crime, according to data from the CT Division of Criminal Justice.
What Connecticut Law Says About Armed Carjacking
Under Connecticut General Statutes § 53a-134, robbery committed while armed with a deadly weapon or displaying a firearm is classified as first-degree robbery, a Class B felony; the mandatory minimum five-year prison sentence that cannot be suspended or reduced applies to robbery while armed with a deadly weapon, not to displaying a firearm, according to Justia Law. Connecticut law also includes a specific sentence enhancer under § 53a-136a for cases where a robbery involves taking a motor vehicle known to be occupied, according to the Connecticut General Assembly. That stands in contrast to non-violent vehicle theft, which is charged as larceny of a motor vehicle under § 53a-119c, a Class E felony carrying up to three years for a first offense — a distinction Justia notes separates simple theft from the more serious charges tied to physical carjackings.
No arrests had been announced in connection with Tuesday night's incident as the crash investigation continues.
