West Bellwater residents are being urged to stay alert in parking lots after a string of carjackings hit the suburban neighborhood, including two incidents within blocks of the community college's West Bellwater campus.
Bellwater police are investigating six carjackings reported across West Bellwater over the past three weeks, a concentration of the crime that Chief Roberta Simms called unusual for a neighborhood that typically logs only a handful of such incidents in an entire year.
In each case, according to police reports, one or more suspects approached a driver at a gas station, parking lot or stoplight, displayed a weapon and demanded the vehicle before fleeing. No victims have been seriously injured, though two reported being struck or shoved during the incidents. Two of the six carjackings occurred within blocks of Bellwater Community College’s West Bellwater campus, prompting the college to send a safety alert to students and staff.
Pattern points to a small, mobile group
Detectives believe the same small group of suspects, likely three to four individuals traveling in a stolen vehicle, is responsible for at least four of the six incidents, based on surveillance footage and matching descriptions of clothing and a getaway vehicle. “The pattern is consistent enough that we’re treating these as connected,” Simms said. “That’s actually useful for us, because it means solving one case likely solves several.”
Council Member Denise Okafor, who represents West Bellwater, said she has heard from dozens of residents anxious about parking-lot safety, particularly near the community college and a shopping plaza that has been the site of three of the incidents. “People choose West Bellwater in part because it’s supposed to be the quiet, safe part of the city,” Okafor said. “A wave like this changes how people feel walking to their own car.”
I had my keys in my hand and someone was in my passenger seat before I even registered what was happening. I don’t want to be scared to pump my own gas, but right now I am.
a West Bellwater carjacking victim who asked not to be named
The department has added evening and overnight patrols to the shopping plaza and the community college’s perimeter roads, and Simms said detectives are reviewing footage from several private security cameras in the area in hopes of identifying a vehicle used in multiple incidents. She said the department is also coordinating with Wentworth County sheriff’s deputies in case the suspects are operating outside city limits between incidents.
College adds its own precautions
Dr. Ramon Delgado, president of Bellwater Community College, said the West Bellwater campus has added extra security presence during evening class changeovers and reminded students to use the campus’s escort service after dark. “Nobody should have to think twice about walking to their car after a night class,” Delgado said. “We’re not going to wait for police to solve this before we take our own precautions.”
Okafor said she has asked the police department for weekly updates until an arrest is made and plans to request additional lighting for the shopping plaza’s parking lot at an upcoming council meeting. She said the neighborhood’s relative lack of violent crime in past years makes the current spree feel especially disorienting to longtime residents.
“West Bellwater doesn’t usually make headlines for this,” Okafor said. “I’d like it to go back to not making headlines for this as fast as possible.”
Simms declined to say whether police have identified specific suspects, citing the active investigation, but said she was confident an arrest was likely in the coming weeks given the volume of evidence detectives have collected. “We would rather take the time to build a case that holds up than rush an arrest and get it wrong,” she said. Anyone with information was asked to contact the department’s tip line.
The shopping plaza’s property manager said several tenant businesses have asked about installing additional lighting and camera coverage in the parking lot at their own expense rather than wait for a city-funded upgrade, though no formal proposal has been submitted. Okafor said she would support a cost-sharing arrangement between the city and the plaza’s ownership if it meant faster installation.
Residents at a recent neighborhood association meeting also raised concerns about a spike in similar carjackings reported in neighboring communities outside city limits, prompting Simms to note that her department has begun sharing surveillance footage and suspect descriptions with Wentworth County sheriff’s deputies on a weekly basis rather than only when a specific case crosses jurisdictions. “If this is regional rather than just a West Bellwater problem, we need to be treating it that way from the start,” she said.
Okafor said the neighborhood association meeting drew roughly 80 residents, an unusually large turnout she attributed to how quickly word of each new incident had spread on local social media groups, sometimes with inaccurate details about where and when a carjacking occurred. “Half of what I hear repeated back to me on the neighborhood app isn’t what’s actually in the police report,” Okafor said. “I understand the fear driving that, but it also makes it harder for people to know what’s actually true.”
Simms said the department has started posting weekly, verified incident summaries to its own social media accounts specifically to counter that kind of rumor spread, a practice she said the department plans to continue through the rest of the investigation and likely beyond it. “People deserve accurate information from us before they get inaccurate information from everywhere else,” she said.