Carjacking details emerge: 3 men, 2 armed, stole car in Howard Park
A couple were carjacked at gunpoint late Monday at Howard Park, according to a West Palm Beach police report.
Two of the three suspects had guns, the couple told city police, and all three got into the 2016 silver Nissan Altima and drove off.
Police arrested a suspect, 22-year-old Dionte Lee Garrett, about two miles north of where he allegedly stole the car. He is facing charges of armed carjacking and resisting arrest without violence, records show. He is being held without bond in the Pa l m B e a c h C ount y Ja i l , records show.
The couple had been in the back seat of the Altima, parked in a lot at the park, the man told police.
Pe o p l e were o u t p l aying basketball, so he didn’t think much when three men walked by his car.
About 20 minutes later, he noticed the three crouching behind a 4-foot wall in some bushes by the front of the car. One walked slowly by the Altima, then another tried to open the driver’s door, the man told police.
One of the men noticed the couple in the back seat, the man told police, and pointed a gun. The armed man demanded they roll d own t h e wi n d ow, t h e n open the door, a city police report states.
Another armed man went to the other side of the car a n d t a p p e d h i s g u n o n the window. He asked the woman if she had any money, which she said she didn’t. He checked her chest anyway, a city police report states.
The armed men ordered the couple out of the car and drove off.
Police spotted the car near the intersection of Windsor Avenue and 23rd Street, the report states, and followed until it stopped at the dead end on 19th Street at the railroad tracks, just east of Division Avenue.
One man, later identified as Garrett, ran from the car. He jumped over a fence into a construction site, police said, leading to a trespassing charge.
When officers caught up to him, Garrett said, “I wasn’t the one with the gun.”
He told a detective he was inside the Altima and apologized, saying he wouldn’t do it again.
The couple identified Garrett as one of the suspects in the carjacking, a report states.
In the last month or so, two other cars reportedly were stolen at gunpoint in the city. Police made arrests in both cases.