A woman who drives for Amazon Flex, making deliveries to make ends meet, was the victim of a crime last Saturday when thieves stole her car and her livelihood at once in the Southeast District of Columbia
“I was so scared I didn’t know if they would kill me. I didn’t know if they had weapons, “said Johnny Ellie.
It happened in a block of flats on First Street in the Bellevue district of the District.
She carried the groceries to the door, and then two masked young men approached.
“I asked them if they could open the door for me,” Ellie said. “They did it, and as soon as I went inside, they pushed me down and started asking for my keys.
Initially, she didn’t want to give up the keys to her 2012 Acura TSX, but decided it wasn’t worth hurting – or worse.
She said the robbers punched her in the face and kicked her.
“My first instinct is like, no, you can’t have my car, but then when they hit me, it kind of broke away from her. For example, I will not lose my life because of my car. So I said to myself, “Here, please take the keys, go,” she said.
Ellie was the victim of a growing criminal trend. So far this year, 988 cars have been stolen in the District. For comparison, at this time in 2021, 852 cars were stolen. This represents an increase of 16%.
And although the crime is not car theft, it is being investigated by a car theft task force.