Fort Worth

Carjacking Victim Leaps onto Back of Moving Stolen Truck

A carjacking victim was briefly hospitalized Christmas night after he jumped into the back of his stolen truck in an attempt to prevent the crime.

The victim, a 25-year-old from Edgecliff Village, a community completely surrounded by Fort Worth, went with an acquaintance Thursday night after celebrating the holiday with his mother to an apartment complex along Crowley Road, near Altamesa Boulevard, where he wanted to sell a set of tires, according to Fort Worth police.

The acquaintance went into an apartment to bring out two potential buyers for the tires, but the trio emerged with an ulterior motive: robbery.

The acquaintance struck the victim with a large stick and began to put the victim into a chokehold in an effort to keep him away from the cab of the truck, according to the police report.

As the other two suspects got into the truck and began to back out, the victim, trying to prevent his assailants from escaping, jumped into the bed of the truck.

"We thought he was playing at the time," said witness James Gube.

Gube said he saw the man standing in the back of a pickup truck that drove past him Christmas night.

"But by the time he got quite a bit in front of us we realized that he was in some kind of danger," Gube said.

The suspects pulled out onto Crowley Road, headed north and set off on a more than three-mile joyride with the victim screaming and waving for help in the truck bed the entire time, according to police.

The incident ended when the suspects drove the truck through a traffic barrier at the dead end of Dupont Circle, drove down a wooded hill and crashed into a tree approximately 500 yards from the road, police reported.

The impact violently threw the victim up against the cab of the truck, according to police. The victim then exited the vehicle, fearing for his own life.

Neighbor Jimmy Castillo told NBC 5 he was taking the Christmas Day trash to the curb around 9:30 p.m.

"I'm taking out the trash and all of a sudden I hear a big crash. I come outside and there's a guy yelling, 'Help me. Help me. Help me,'" Castillo recounted. "[The victim] comes up from the trail. And I'm like, 'What's wrong?' And he's like, 'They jumped me, they jumped me and took my truck.'"

At the same time, the three suspects exited the truck and ran past Castillo and the victim into a waiting lime green Ford Mustang, according to police.

The victim was treated and released from John Peter Smith Hospital, according to his father.

The victim's mouth is nearly swollen closed, according to his father, but he is otherwise expected to recover.

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