Things got worse last week near the American city of Milwaukee, where Adam Jorgenson was waiting next to his car for a car wash when a passerby approached him.
Kids in the back seat
It turned out to be a diversion, and before he could do anything, his car was stolen. In the back seat were his two children: 8-year-old Charlie and her 2-year-old sister, Autumn.
“Someone stole my car and my two children are still in the back,” Jorgenson told police, breathless, in an audio recording published by American media.
“Mama, you have to come.”
A little further away, the car thieves ordered Charlie out of the car. “I thought: What should I do? Should I run away like a scaredy cat? Or should I try to save my sister?”
Charlie decided to stay in the car with her sister, who burst into tears. She saw her father's phone in the car and called her mother. “Mom, you have to come. We lost Dad,” she said in a voicemail message she left behind.
More car theft
The car thieves decided to surrender and left the car a mile away. Police later arrested three men between the ages of 17 and 21 on charges of attempted robbery.
According to the Washington Post, the number of car thefts in major American cities has risen sharply in recent years. In New York, Mayor Eric Adams came up with an unorthodox solution last year: he distributed 500 free AirTags that allowed residents to track a stolen car.
