SILVER SPRING, MD. – Two teenagers were arrested Wednesday in connection with a carjacking where a woman was dragged into her own vehicle in downtown Silver Spring.

Montgomery County police confirm the woman was the victim of a carjacking after 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.

FOX 5 was told the woman stopped to visit Bank of America on Georgia Avenue and Spring Street.

Police say the woman’s arm became caught in a struggle with the suspected car thief as she tried to get the thief out of his vehicle.

An official said the victim was dragged momentarily and taken to hospital, thankfully with non-life-threatening injuries.

Sheila Campbell, who visited that same bank on Wednesday, told FOX 5, “It’s very upsetting. On my mailing list, I hear a lot more about carjackings than I used to, so I’m a bit more on my guard than before. being.”

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“I love living in Silver Spring, but there are a lot of things going on now that don’t sound right,” she added.

The car theft happened about six months after county leaders revealed that a downtown Silver Spring task force had been formed to combat rising crime in that area of ​​the county.

“The data actually suggests, and you know Commander McBain actually showed this to our advisory board in Silver Spring, that the crime numbers are actually improving. Knock on wood, I’m even safe to say that, we haven’t had a homicide in Downtown Silver Spring this year,” said Montgomery County Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Dr. Earl Stoddard.

DC confirmed that two 15-year-olds were apprehended in the district in connection with the carjacking.

A third suspect, the real driver, is still wanted.

The two apprehended suspects were described by police as rear passengers and were charged with unauthorized use of a vehicle.

It is unclear whether they were detained or released due to juvenile privacy laws.

Stoddard also cited DC’s arrest as an example of the work of the multi-partner task force.

FOX 5 also asked County Executive Marc Elrich about crime in downtown Silver Spring, and a specific attack ad in the county executive race that accuses him of disbanding the auto theft unit that reportedly worked on increasing carjackings across the county in the past two years.

During his weekly briefing, Elrich discussed the city’s task force. “It was neither deleted nor disbanded,” he said. “Police have been reassigned to the police station. I did not come to this decision out of the blue, as the chief of police thought it was better to put the police in the police stations rather than having a centralized operational force. . If he believes after what we’ve seen it makes sense to bring this group together as a task force and get people out of the stations, I’m not going to argue against that.”

“Marc Elrich did not ‘fund’ the auto theft unit. The leader made the decision to decentralize the unit and move auto theft to individual district stations,” FOX 5 told per emailed a Montgomery County Police spokesperson.

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MCPD is part of a regional carjacking task force and also operates a downtown Silver Spring task force.

In an email to FOX 5, FOP Lodge 35 President Lee Holland wrote:

“When the executive produced a budget for the prefect of police to abolish the centralized auto theft unit, they sent an auto theft detective to every station (except the 1st precinct). Since then, the department has opened a temporary assignment to reinstate an auto theft task force. Disbanding the auto theft unit was ultimately seen as a bad decision. We hope the executive and police chief will reinstate the centralized unit on a permanent basis to help reduce runaway auto theft and carjacking within our community.”

Montgomery County police told FOX 5 countywide they responded to 31 carjackings this year, up from 29 in the same 5-6 month period last year.