Volkswagen, a German automaker, has come under fire for allegedly refusing to assist Illinois police in using their automobile monitoring service to locate a missing youngster unless they paid upfront.
On Thursday, Libertyville, Illinois, experienced a brutal carjacking, and police responding to the scene were aware that time was of the essence. A suspect in the theft of a VW Atlas from a woman’s driveway, while her 2-year-old son was still in the back seat, was still at large.
Authorities Seek Missing Volswagen Vehicle
She was apparently hit and thrown to the ground by a man who got out of the car’s passenger seat. The man then sped off in her vehicle while her young child remained inside.
The BMW driver and the carjacker sped off. The mother allegedly suffered severe damage to her extremities after one of them ran over her, according to the sheriff’s office. NBC Chicago reported that she was six months pregnant at the time of the attack.
Volkswagen Car-Net, which offers VW owners vehicle management and location services from a mobile app, was called by police looking for the missing child and asked to utilize its monitoring tools to find the child.
However, other capabilities, including location services, reportedly cost extra. According to the sheriff’s office’s Facebook post, Volkswagen allegedly informed law enforcement that the business “would not follow the vehicle with the abducted child until they received cash to reactivate the tracking device in the stolen VW.”
VW has a mechanism in place to respond to emergency requests from police authorities, according to a representative who offered condolences to the family in a statement.
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Hijacking In Libertyville
According to a statement from the sheriff’s office, Lake County sheriff’s officers responded to the complaint of a hijacking in Libertyville, a town about 40 miles north of Chicago, on Thursday afternoon.
The unidentified 34-year-old woman was driving home in her Volkswagen when a BMW drew up behind her. According to the statement, a man got out of the BMW and fought with the woman, knocking her to the ground. He then stole the Volkswagen, which still had her 2-year-old son inside. In the two vehicles, the man and the BMW driver took off.
According to the allegation, one of the vehicles drove over the woman as they fled. “Some of her bones were broken,” Covelli said.
According to the statement, officers found the child when a passerby at a store in the nearby city of Waukegan contacted 911 to report two automobiles stopping in the parking lot and one driver abandoning a young child there.
The police found the woman’s kid and later discovered the stolen Volkswagen in a different parking lot.
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