CHARLOTTE, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) – Surveillance video shows a carjacking suspect slamming into a car with a mom and her child inside Charlotte’s Belmont neighborhood.
Then, the stolen car launches into the air, spinning in a circle after it lands.
The crash ended in the Belmont neighborhood and started about eleven miles away in University City.
Police say the suspect walked up and pulled a gun on a driver at a stoplight and stole a dealership-owned car from a dealership worker.
Then police chased the car briefly and lost sight of it until they got to the corner of Belmont Avenue and Harrill Street and found two wrecked vehicles.
The crash only lasts five seconds, but the impact will be felt for a while.
“I heard the first hit. It sounded like a dump truck,” said Paul Culbreth, a neighbor. “You know how the bucket truck comes up and goes back down — and it makes a loud noise?”
The driver of a stolen car sped through a stop sign, hit a car with a mom and her child inside, went airborne, hit a utility pole, and left the cables shaking from the force.
“He hit ’em hard, real hard,” said Culbreth.
Culbreth saw the aftermath, the child being loaded onto the stretcher and the mom in the ambulance.
“I seen the mother in the chair, and the baby was crying, hollering, scared,” said Culbreth.
Police say the tense moments were all caused by Marshay Washington, who stole a dealership-owned car and led police on a brief chase before the crash.
Police say Washington ran away after he slammed into the mom and her child.
They found him hiding out in a trash can and arrested him.
“Foolishness, crazy, don’t care about nobody but their self,” said Culbreth.
Police say the mom and child had minor injuries. Businesses like Sweet Lou’s BBQ were left to clean up independently.
Neighbors still have mud and gravel dredged up on their lawns and sidewalks.
The aftermath is one thing, but the impact is something far greater.
Washington is being held under no bond under some of the charges. He’s due in court Thursday morning.
