ST. LOUIS 鈥 In the late hours of Tuesday night, an Uber driver arrived in the 4400 block of Kennerly Avenue to pick up a group of teenagers.
When the teens approached the car, one of them pulled a gun, fired a shot and demanded the driver get out of his vehicle, the driver later told police. The teens then jumped in the car and sped off.
果酱视频 police tracked the stolen car and then chased the teens on a miles-long pursuit before they crashed in Bridgeton. All four were arrested.
But police said they couldn鈥檛 detain them. The teens were released back to their families that night.
Early Thursday morning, police got another call for a carjacking, this time from a Lyft driver.
It appeared to be the same teens, police said.
On Thursday, police officials were frustrated. The problem, said spokesman Mitch McCoy, is a judicial system that tracks youth arrests and assigns them points for each crime alleged. Unless they rack up enough points, they can鈥檛 be held in juvenile detention.
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鈥(Police) see how easily preventable this could have been, and it鈥檚 not our intent to place blame on anyone or anything,鈥 McCoy said. 鈥淭he only thing we鈥檙e raising our hand to say today would be that it might be time that we just take a look at the overall point system.鈥
The run-in with the teens started about 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, when police responded to the first carjacking.
By early Wednesday, police had located the car. But when they tried it pull it over, it sped off. They chased it for miles, ending in the crash in Bridgeton. They arrested four teenagers in that incident, including a 16-year-old driver.
But police didn鈥檛 hold or charge the teens, McCoy said. Instead, they were dropped off at their homes.
Then, about 2 a.m. Thursday, the Lyft vehicle was stolen.
The driver told police he was giving the teens a ride when one pulled a gun and demanded he get out of the vehicle, near the intersection of Carter and North Newstead avenues, about a mile away from the first carjacking.
Then the teens drove away with it, McCoy said.
Police tracked the car with the teens inside and chased it to the 4200 block of Penrose Street. The group of teens jumped out and fled, McCoy said, but police caught the 16-year-old driver and arrested him.
He was the same 16-year-old, McCoy said, who had been arrested only 26 hours earlier. This time, police charged him with tampering and resisting arrest.
鈥淭he officers that arrested the 16-year-old last night are the same group of officers that arrested him this morning,鈥 he said. 鈥淭hey were talking about it. The 16-year-old knew that he had just been captured by the same officers.鈥
Police suspect but aren鈥檛 sure the other teens are the same who were arrested after the first carjacking.
But there were two carjackings, about a day apart, about a mile apart, where multiple teens confronted a lone ride-hailing driver.
鈥淭his is not rocket science,鈥 McCoy said.
Missouri鈥檚 juvenile point system is the problem, McCoy said.
In Missouri, the system, called the Juvenile Detention Assessment, assigns points to minors based on the crimes they commit 鈥 similar to how points are assigned to a driver鈥檚 license for traffic offenses.
A score of 15 points is required to detain a minor, . Class A felonies, the worst crimes, count for the full 15 points 鈥 enough to be detained after the first offense. But most felonies only count for 12.
The system is used by 35 of Missouri鈥檚 46 judicial courts, including 果酱视频 County, where the chase after the first carjacking ended. Juvenile Detention couldn't hold the teens after the first offense because they didn't have enough points, McCoy said.
The police department would like someone to review of the juvenile court system, McCoy said.
鈥淭hese are kids committing very dangerous crimes that are going to kill someone,鈥 he continued.
Juveniles can still be charged, even if they haven鈥檛 been detained,
By Thursday afternoon, only the 16-year-old driver had been charged.
McCoy said police did not yet have enough evidence to charge the other teens.
Jack Suntrup of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
