Four suspects flee after carjacking man near Southwest Baltimore shopping center

BALTIMORE (WBFF) — Police are searching for four people who took a man’s car after pulling him out of it in Southwest Baltimore on Tuesday.

Officers received reports that there had been carjacking in the 2400 block of Frederick Avenue around 5:40 p.m., according to authorities.

They went to the Westside Shopping Center area and learned that four people had approached the 34-year-old man while he was in his vehicle. One of them dragged the man out of his car, police said.

Afterward, all four people got into the car and fled the area. Police said they are continuing to search for it.

The Westside Shopping Center is the largest shopping center in Southwest Baltimore. It is wedged between Shipley Hill and Carrollton Ridge, two neighborhoods that have repeatedly been the site of violent crimes.

Carrollton Ridge was the site of a grisly homicide investigation in May 2022. That’s when 35-year-old Miguel Soto-Diaz was found inside a house that had been set on fire—just one block away from the shopping center. He had been kidnapped, tortured, shot multiple times, and set on fire prior to his death.

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Investigators learned that Soto-Diaz had supplied Ziyon “Fats” Thompson with shipments of marijuana from California. Soto-Diaz traveled to Baltimore on May 7, 2022, to expand the partnership. One day later, his business associates in California received a video call that showed Soto-Diaz zip-tied to a chair and his mouth. They were told he would be released unharmed if they and provided him with 200 pounds of marijuana and $50,000.

Soto-Diaz was found dead later that day.

The following year, police shot a 17-year-old boy in the 2500 block of Frederick Avenue, which serves as the northern border of the shopping center.

An officer had spotted the teenager in the 2500 block of McHenry Street and noticed that the teenager “characteristics of an armed person.”

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Baltimore Police Chief Richard Worley said the teenager had a weapon that he refused to drop despite being instructed to do so multiple times.

The violence has continued in 2024, with Shipley Hill seeing its first deadly shooting of the year in the 2700 block of West Fairmount Avenue on Monday.

Meanwhile, Carrollton Ridge saw its first homicide of the year on March 7.

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Officers responding to a report of an unresponsive person found a man laying near the mouth of an alleyway.

That alleyway connects Furrow Street to a shortcut that leads toward the shopping center area.

Police later identified the man as 41-year-old Wayne Sawyer.