Police have arrested a San Francisco man on suspicion of carjacking a driver at knifepoint on the streets of Fisherman's Wharf in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Officers arrived at North Point and Mason streets following a report of a carjacking shortly after 4:20 a.m. and spoke to a man who said the carjacker had threatened him with a knife before driving off in his vehicle.
The Citizen app listed the vehicle as a gray Toyota Prius. Police said the department shared a suspect and vehicle description with other agencies, and law enforcement soon spotted the stolen vehicle fleeing east across the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.
San Francisco police, with help from the California Highway Patrol, pursued the suspect into the East Bay and north to Vallejo, the department said, where the vehicle finally stopped, and its driver was taken into custody. Police identified him as a 47-year-old San Francisco man and booked him into jail on suspicion of carjacking, reckless evading and driving without a license.
There were four reports of motor vehicle thefts in that part of San Francisco in the 30 days ending Jan. 14, 2024, and 102 in the 12 months leading up to that date, compared with 93 during the same period the previous year, according to police data analyzed by The Standard.
Citywide, the number of motor vehicle thefts has increased slightly since 2020, from 61 to 100 incidents per 10,000 residents.