A Maryland man has been charged with armed carjacking after a woman’s SUV was stolen at gunpoint in Cherrydale last month.
Tyler Abrahim Afsar, 23, of Hyattsville, Md., is also charged with robbery, grand larceny auto, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, the Arlington County Police Department said in a press release today. Detectives obtained warrants for his arrest yesterday (Wednesday).
Afsar is being held in D.C., where he was arrested hours after the carjacking following a chase and rollover crash.
The carjacking happened around 1 p.m. on July 14 in the 4100 block of 18th Street N., a residential stretch of Cherrydale. A woman was sitting in her parked vehicle when a man pulled up in a pickup truck, walked up to her driver’s side window, pointed a gun and demanded her vehicle, police said. He also took the contents of her purse before driving off in her SUV. No one was hurt.
The pickup truck was later determined to be stolen out of Prince George’s County, according to police.
A witness told ARLnow that the woman was a dog walker who had just returned a dog to a house on the street.
Officers canvassed the area that afternoon without finding the suspect. Later that evening, Prince George’s County police spotted the stolen SUV and U.S. Park Police tried to pull it over. The driver kept going, striking an occupied car and a parked one before overturning at Branch Avenue and Lyndale Place SE in D.C., Park Police said at the time.
Park Police took the driver — the only person in the vehicle — into custody and recovered a gun, authorities said. Arlington detectives went on to link him to the July 14 carjacking, according to ACPD.
The investigation is ongoing, police said. Anyone with information is asked to contact Det. J. Cox at 703-228-0491 or [email protected], or to leave an anonymous tip with the Arlington County Crime Solvers hotline at 1-866-411-8477.
