WASHINGTON — A Southeast D.C. man said he was scared for his life after he was carjacked by an armed person in the early Wednesday morning hours at a Mobil gas station off Pennsylvania Avenue in Southeast.
Tom Donohue, who was lived in Southeast D.C. for eight years, said he drove to the gas station to get money so he would have it for work the next day.
Surveillance video shows Donohue pulling up the gas station, getting out of the car, returning to the car just as another car pulls behind him blocking him in. That's when surveillance video shows an armed and masked person get out of a vehicle and quickly run to Donohue's door. Donohue gets out of the car and can be seen talking to the person about something in the back seat, his 11-year-old dog Dusty.
“I don't know life without dusty," Donohue said. "Anybody that knows me knows Dusty is my life."
Thankfully the armed man did let him get his best friend of more than a decade from the back seat.
"It would have been the most important thing in my life that had now been gone, and that was not an option," Donohue said. “He did the right thing. So call it him having a heart, call it whatever it is, he did the right thing by letting me get the dog out. But ultimately, he's going to need to be held accountable for doing the wrong thing.”
Donohue is not the first victim of an armed carjacking in D.C. this year.
According to police data, there have been 268 carjackings so far this year, a 57% increase compared to last year.
Donohue said he relives the terrifying scenario every time he talks about it.
"I think that now that a couple of days have gone by the fact that he had a gun, and that with a pull of it so quickly I could have been gone brings a new reality to life," Donohue said.
Donohue said someone anonymously called police to tell them a suspicious car was on their street 16 hours after his vehicle was stolen. The suspicious car was Donohue's. He said the tags and registration are missing but he's happy to have it back.
D.C. Police said they have not identified a suspect.
Donohue has established a gofundme.