ST. LOUIS – Police are looking for a man after he was forced out of his car at gunpoint, then driven off by his kidnappers; none of them have been seen since.
Just after 8:20 p.m. Friday, a driver was sitting in his car at the pump, at the Phillips 66 gas station off South Grand, when suddenly two cars blocked him in.
Police said two vehicles with three men and two women, between the ages of 16 and 20, drove onto the lot and surrounded him.
Two of the suspects pointed guns at the driver, ordered him out of the car, searched him, took off his jacket, and then forced him back into the passenger seat of his own car. Two kidnappers then took off with the victim in his own car, with the three other suspects driving in the vehicles they came in behind.
No one has been seen since.
“It’s crazy, like me and my kids could have been walking up here when all of this was going down, and anything could have happened,” said Nicolle Marshall, a resident in Tower Grove South.
Marshall and her kids live down the street. This incident comes as a shock to her and her neighbors, all longtime residents.
“It makes you wonder: did they know the driver to take him? Because why would you want the driver,” said Zach Wosky, a resident of Tower Grove South. “That’s just an additional hassle that you have to worry about.”
“I walk here daily, me and my daughter; we go to the library there; we stop here to get snacks; it is a shocker,” said James Cole, another resident in Tower Grove South. “I just hope all parties are ok.”
The victim was last seen wearing a black jacket, black pants, and blue surgical gloves. He was also in his late teens to early twenties.
The motive is unclear at the moment.
The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department is looking for the victim’s Chevy Bolt and the suspects’ white Kia Optima and blue Chevrolet sedan.
As the investigation continues, SLMPD is asking anyone who knows where the victim and suspect are to contact them.
