Two teenage girls face felony charges for their role in a brutal attempted carjacking in Washington D.C. that left an UberEats driver dead, as reported by USA Today.
The driver, 66-year-old Mohammad Anwar, was completing an UberEats delivery on Tuesday when the two girls suddenly appeared and attempted to carjack him. One of them used a taser on him, and Anwar sped off in a panic after the initial struggle, eventually getting into an accident that flipped his car. Anwar was taken to the hospital and pronounced dead after “all lifesaving efforts failed,” according to a statement by the police.
The girls are both minors, with one being 15 years old and the other being just 13. They have been charged with felony murder and armed carjacking with a taser, and their identities have not yet been revealed.
A GoFundMe set up by Anwar’s family for the purpose of paying for a traditional Islamic funeral, as well as covering other financial expenses for his family, has already raised over half a million dollars. The GoFundMe says that Anwar, who immigrated to the United States from Pakistan in 2014, was the primary income earner for his family.
Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D-D.C.) has already been facing widespread criticism for her response to the incident, after her office shared a public service announcement on Sunday in the form of a video on how to prevent a carjacking, which some said amounted to victim-blaming. Bowser’s office eventually released a statement saying that the carjacking post “should not detract from the tragic death of Mohammad Anwar,” and that “our thoughts and prayers remain with his family and the families of those we have lost to violence.”