Employees commended for nabbing carjacking suspect

DeKalb County CEO Burrell Ellis commended three county employees July 9 for stopping a July 3 carjacking that occurred in a DeKalb County government parking lot.

Ellis thanked employees Cassandra Mouzon, Harvey Carter and Sean Brown.

According to police, the carjacking occurred at approximately 9 a.m. in the parking lot of the Manuel J. Maloof Center.

Mouzon, an employee in Solicitor General Sherri Boston’s office, witnessed a woman being carjacked by a young man. She then ran over to the vehicle Carter and Brown were in for help.

Carter and Brown, who are public works employees, blocked the exit to the parking lot with their truck. Eventually, the two allowed the suspect to flee in his vehicle as they followed him.

“Our county employees are asked to do a whole lot of stuff and we know they’re not compensated the way that they should be, yet they show up each and every day to do their work,” Commissioner Lee May said.

Brown and Carter followed the suspect south on Candler Road while on the phone with 911 operators until police could apprehend the suspect.

“What happened on last week is something that shows that not only do we have employees who do their job, but we have employees that have high integrity and they’ll sacrifice on the behalf of others,” May said.

Ellis told the employees that they did a “very brave and dangerous thing.”

The employees’ quick thinking, Ellis said, allowed the situation to stay under control.

Boston said the last thing she expected was to get a phone call stating that one of her employees had been instrumental in stopping a carjacking.

“These last few weeks, as many of you have seen in the paper, we have had a consistent string of violence in East Lake, Kirkwood and the city of Decatur and into other parts of the city in Fulton County,” Boston said. “It turned out to be a very serious crime but it could have been worse. Someone could have been killed or injured by the young man who decided to carjack her at 9 a.m.”

Boston said the victim was grateful for the employees’ help.