HOLLYWOOD, Fla. – Two friends describe the scary scene early Saturday morning when they say an armed carjacker ordered them out of the Nissan Rogue they were driving, hopped in, and sped off.
Trishay Lestrade said she hasn’t seen her dark green 2016 Rogue with Florida license plate CUPZ21 since about 4:45 a.m. Saturday.
That’s when a man with an automatic weapon — “I want to say it’s almost like an uzi,” Lestrade said — ordered her and her friend Carla Haughton out of the car.
“He says, ‘Get out the [expletive] car ... Get out the [expletive] car’ ... I put my head back, and I was like, lord,” Lestrade said.
She describes the carjacker as tall, skinny with a dark complexion, dreadlocks and wearing a black hoodie.
“I just remember [Lestrade ] opening the door and saying, ‘We gotta go,’” Haughton said.
Lestrade and Haughton had been headed home, going east on Sheridan Street.
They said they noticed a dark-colored Nissan sedan with two women in it and the other a gold SUV with at least three men.
“You just felt like, almost, they were being childish,” Lestrade said, so she kept her distance.
“They got to the next light. ... They got there before me, and they were still conversing,” she said. “One guy was hanging out of the car and the girl was talking to him, so I fell behind.”
When the light turned green, Lestrade went past them and said “they were still messing around behind me, and I could see them in my rearview.”
When she got to the Dixie Highway intersection, all hell broke loose.
“Our light turned, and the guy jumped out,” Lestrade said.
“I was paying attention up until I wasn’t. And that’s when he got me.”
The carjacker took off east on Sheridan, the victims say.
Lestrade and Haughton then hid behind a car in the nearby Goodwill parking lot and called police.
“They didn’t shoot us. I mean, I’m grateful to be alive,” Lestrade said. “You never know, these days, people are ruthless.
“I just hope that they do find them, before they actually hurt anyone.”
The two women say while they were hiding behind the car in the parking lot, the two women in the other car — the carjacker’s friends — circled back around, into the parking lot, apparently to check on the victims, to make sure they were OK.
Hollywood detectives are working the case. If you have any information, you are urged to call Hollywood police.