Murder of Mohammad Anwar

On March 23, 2021, Mohammad Anwar, a 66-year-old Uber Eats driver, was fatally injured during a carjacking near Nationals Park in the Navy Yard area of Washington, D.C. Anwar had immigrated to Springfield, Virginia in 2014 and was a father and grandfather; he was survived by a wife and two adult children in the United States, with four grandchildren living in Pakistan.

Anwar was working for Uber Eats when two teenage girls assaulted him with a stun gun and attempted to hijack his Honda Accord. During the incident, the car crashed and Anwar was ejected from the vehicle, landing on the sidewalk in front of Nationals Park, where he was found severely injured and unresponsive. He later died at a hospital. National Guardsmen who were stationed near the stadium as part of Operation Capitol Response helped extract the two suspects from the car after the crash.

The two perpetrators were both minors: one was 13 years old and from southeast Washington, D.C., and the other was 15 years old and from Fort Washington, Maryland. Police stated that the incident was not the first recent crime for one of the two girls. Both were arrested at the scene and charged the same day with felony murder and carjacking, initially entering pleas of "not involved," the juvenile-court equivalent of a not-guilty plea. Some members of the public called for the girls to be tried as adults, but under District of Columbia law, 13-year-olds cannot be tried as adults, and the prosecutor handling the case chose not to pursue adult prosecution for the 15-year-old.

Prosecutors subsequently offered both suspects plea agreements under which they could plead guilty to felony murder in exchange for the dismissal of other charges. The 15-year-old accepted this deal on May 11, 2021, and the 13-year-old (by then 14 years old) accepted a similar deal on June 3, 2021. On sentencing, the 15-year-old received the maximum sentence allowed under law and was remanded to a youth agency until she is deemed rehabilitated or reaches the age of 21. The younger girl received the same sentence on July 6, 2021.

The killing drew public criticism of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser after she shared a video focused on preventing auto thefts in response to the crime, which observers noted was a carjacking rather than a simple theft. Carjackings had reportedly tripled in the Navy Yard area over the previous year.