Altered lives
Victims speak out about the lasting effects the carjackings have had on their lives.
People who have been carjacked describe similar feelings in the aftermath: Distrust. Anxiety. Fear.
Like any criminal case, victims have the chance to detail the impact of the incident on their life during sentencing. A judge takes their statements into account, as well as the offender’s criminal record and need for rehabilitation, protection of the community and effect of the crime.
Here is a selection of their statements taken from court records and transcripts:
Physical effects
“It was hard to walk and move and get dressed. I couldn’t do the basic essentials of taking care of my newborn child because of this,” said a woman whose car was stolen during a bump-and-run carjacking.
She grabbed onto the car because her baby was still inside and was pulled alongside it. The carjacker, Avan Kittler, did stop a couple of blocks later and put the child, secured in his car seat, on the curb. It was one of several crimes Kittler was convicted of, and in January he received a sentence of 15 years in prison.
“And I’m still affected every day while I’m driving, whenever I’m outside my house. I don’t know what happened to my purse and any of the information that was in it, so I don’t know if people have my address or anything like that. So I’m scared all the time. And I don’t want that for anyone else,” the woman said.
Emotional effects
“I feel trapped in my own home. My sense of security is completely gone. I don’t like going anywhere after dark. Our house is completely locked up with a bar lock to the side door,” one woman wrote to a federal judge.
The woman’s husband was robbed at gunpoint of their car, outside their home. One of the carjackers, Dunn Henderson, held a gun to her husband’s head, demanded the keys and forced him inside where she was.
“...We stay home primarily now because we don’t feel comfortable going out thinking something bad might happen to us,” she wrote.
Henderson was sentenced to 13 years in federal prison. His accomplice, Richard Whittaker, who provided the gun, was sentenced in October to 11 years and five months.
Perceptions change
A young man who was carjacked on the city’s east side by Henderson and Whittaker spoke in court about how the crime changed him in ways he doesn’t like.
“I hate to say it because I’m not this type of person, but ... it scares me now to walk past someone who is of African-American descent when they have their hood up,” he said. Henderson and Whittaker are AfricanAmerican.
“I can only imagine that that’s why vehicles are being stolen since they don’t have jobs, they’re trying to make money; it’s just for monetary value,” he said, according to a court transcript.
“But it’s changed me as a person who I don’t want to be, I don’t want to see people like that,” he said. “I’m working every day and try and not be that way and to progress in myself.”