A driver and passenger sitting in a car outside a Norfolk hotel Sunday night thought they were meeting someone they knew. Instead, police say, the man who climbed into their vehicle pulled out a gun, fired it, and drove off with their car. No one was hurt, but the ordeal has left investigators piecing together a case that started as a simple arranged meeting and ended in gunfire.
Norfolk police responded at approximately 8:45 p.m. Sunday to the 1500 block of Premium Outlets Boulevard for a report of an armed carjacking, according to a report. Officers were told a driver and a passenger were sitting inside a vehicle outside a hotel when a man they had arranged to meet at the location got in and brandished a firearm. That detail matches reporting from WAVY.com, which also covered the incident.
After the two victims got out of the car, the suspect discharged the weapon before speeding off in the stolen vehicle, the same report notes. No injuries were reported in the encounter despite the gunfire. Officers later located the car, unoccupied, in the 600 block of Goff Street, several blocks from where it was taken.
Investigation Remains Open, No Suspect Named
As of now, police have not released a suspect description, and no arrest or charges have been announced in connection with the carjacking. The case remains an active investigation, per the same account, and anything beyond the basic sequence of events — including who the suspect is or why the meeting was arranged in the first place — has not been made public.
Carjacking cases in Norfolk have occasionally ended in swift arrests. In one earlier case, a man identified as Lake was arrested in Chesapeake and held in Norfolk City Jail without bond on gun and carjacking-related charges, according to 13News Now. That suspect also faced charges tied to a separate carjacking from the day before his arrest.
What Virginia Law Says About Carjacking
Carjacking carries steep consequences under Virginia law. A conviction is a felony punishable by life imprisonment or a minimum term of 15 years, according to Virginia state law. That statute applies regardless of whether a weapon is ultimately fired, as police say happened in Sunday's case near the outlet mall.
Residents looking to track crime trends near Premium Outlets Boulevard or elsewhere in the city can consult the City of Norfolk's crime mapping tool, which provides public access to data on crimes reported over the past 90 days and allows searches by type near a given address, intersection or landmark. For now, anyone with information on Sunday's carjacking is encouraged to come forward as Norfolk police continue working the case.
