Crime & Safety

East Tosa Resident Attacked, Carjacked in His Driveway

Man is punched and robbed of his keys moments after backing his wife's VW out of the garage, and two assailants flee with her car. It's briefly spotted the next morning but police lose sight of it.

An East Tosa man was approached last Wednesday in his driveway by two strangers who asked to use his phone to call for a ride, and when he refused, they attacked and punched him, ripped his keys out of his pocket and drove off with his wife's car.

The victim was not seriously injured in the assault. At latest report, no suspects had been arrested and the car had not been recovered, although it was spotted the next morning in Milwaukee.

At 9:58 a.m. Wednesday, the victim called police to his home in the 2200 block of North 69th Street, saying he had just been robbed.

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He told officers he had been moving his and his wife's cars at the time. He had backed his own car out of the drive and parked it on the street. Then he backed his wife's 2013 Volkswagen Jetta diesel out of the garage and parked it on the driveway.

He said he had noticed two men coming down the sidewalk, and now, as he walked away from his wife's car toward his house, he saw that they were standing behind his wife's car in his drive.

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One of the men walked up to him, he said, and asked to use his phone. He said he didn't have one on him, and that the stranger then asked to use his home phone. He told the victim he needed to get to the east side of Milwaukee and needed to call someone for a ride.

The homeowner told him he couldn't use the phone and walked past him toward his back door. A moment later he was punched hard in the back of the head, and he tried to run. The attacker grabbed him, and the victim grabbed hold of his wooden fence.

He told officers the man shoved his hand in his pants pocket and pulled back so hard his pocket ripped open and he himself accidentally yanked two planks off his fence. His keys fell to the ground, the robber scooped them up, and both men jumped into his wife's car and took off.

He described the men as black, both in their early 20's, each with a thin build and medium complexion. One, he said, was about 5-feet-9- to 5-feet-10-inches tall, the other maybe an inch shorter. The first weighed 135 to 140 pounds and had short black hair; the second just slightly lighter weight and with slightly longer hair.

The victim could not recall enough about their clothing to give any further description.

At 10:50 the following morning, a Milwaukee police officer on patrol spotted the stolen Jetta not far away, at Woody's Petroleum, 3501 N. 60th St. He had to make a U-turn, though, and when he approached the gas station the car was gone.

Store video showed a black man in his 20's, roughly matching the descriptions of either subject given by the victim, getting out, going into the station and buying some small item and leaving in under a minute. Officers could tell there was a passenger in the car but had no view of him or her.

The wife of the robbery victim called police back later to say that while pulling some weeds near their driveway she had found a Phillips screwdriver in the grass that did not belong to the couple. It had rained since the robbery and no evidence could be recovered from it.


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