93-3-3-WMR Audio on Demand presents the Preston and Steve Show podcast.

And now, Preston and Steve's news update with Kathy Romano.

All right, today is Thursday, October 7th.

Good morning, Kathy.

Good morning in the news this morning.

An off-duty Philadelphia police officer was carjacked on Wednesday night in West Philadelphia. The officer was returning home from her shift at the airport at around 1120 when the incident happened. Police say two armed men wearing black clothing carjacked the officer at Hazel Avenue and South 46th Street. She was not injured. The suspect drove away in the officer's 2012 Toyota Camry. The car was found about three blocks away on the 4,800 block of Osa Avenue after it hit a porch.

A police uniform was on the ground next to the vehicle.

The suspects ran from the scene.

This latest incident comes as carjackings in Philadelphia are up.

As of late September, there were 456 carjackings in the city.

That's an increase from last year's 409 and almost double from 2019, which had 225 carjacking.

We had a little bit, not exactly in my area, but on the periphery, it started to happen and then it stopped.

I think like a neighborhood watch and people were interceding, but a lot of the homes have sort of back common drive, you know, driveways. Yeah, behind the house and alleys, right, which provides cover for carjackers. Right. I've seen a lot of stories of carjacking's being up around the country. Yeah. This year in particular. You know what? And it's amazing what, like, the community watch programs do.

They help.

They do help.

Yeah, they help.

I knew somebody who moved into a very nice neighborhood, big houses, and very nice, you know,

everybody drove nice cars, and they were being targeted.

The cars were being targeted.

And a lot of people were keeping their, the doors open, I guess.

And so not carjacking, but that, you know, they would go. They would

open the car doors. And then, you know, and a lot of the houses had surveillance videos. And they then started to break into the houses. So they, you know, they kept calling the police and they, they couldn't catch them. Like, you know, they couldn't, they didn't know when the guys were coming. But they were able to kind of do like a they took shifts and and they did a watch of the neighborhood and, you know, so far it's been good, but those community watch programs do help. Yep. My neighborhood, they just throw slices of cheese on your clothes. But is that in a defensive way? Maybe. Yeah. Wait, did that happen? Oh yeah. You don't remember that? Wait, the cheese. She had cheese and he He had cheese slices on it. Maybe it was last year or no, I think it was like two years ago.

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