A man running from D.C. police carjacked a motorist at gunpoint late Monday morning and was quickly arrested after crashing into another car along New York Avenue NE, according to authorities.
Police said they recovered a .45-caliber Hi-Point handgun and charged Kevin Hammond, 25, of Suitland, Md., with armed carjacking, carrying a handgun without a license, unauthorized use of a vehicle and leaving the scene of an accident.
The incident began about 7 a.m., when officers were on the lookout for a white Ford work van with “Apartment Turnover Inc” on the side. The vehicle had been reported taken during a home-invasion robbery in Prince George’s County.
Police saw the van parked next to a rental storage facility in the 2000 block of Fairview Avenue NE, in the Ivy City neighborhood. The location is one block off New York Avenue.
Police said a man was in the vehicle.
Seeing the officers, authorities said, the man sped off in the vehicle, which then crashed. He got out of the van, climbed a six-foot fence topped with razor wire and ran west on New York Avenue.
Police said the man confronted the driver of a Toyota Camry, struck the driver in the face with a handgun and took the vehicle.
Police said he drove “recklessly a high rate of speed” and struck another vehicle a few blocks away. Hammond was arrested about a block away.
Police did not say how the gun was recovered. Details on the home-invasion case were not immediately available.
Police shut down New York Avenue, a main thoroughfare in and out of the District, for about an hour after the incident.