Carjacked in the capital: The 'crime of the pandemic' is still roiling D.C.

While many types of crime surged during Covid, carjackings are one of the few that have remained well above pre-pandemic levels in cities like D.C.

It was just after 8 p.m. when Michael Waller pulled up to his home on a well-to-do block near Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Waller, then 59, glanced at his phone to check his email. Within seconds, two men appeared on either side of his gray Mercedes waving Glock handguns.

The man on the passenger side opened the door and slammed his gun into Waller’s right ear and scalp, knocking him out for a moment. When he came to, he was still strapped into his seat belt, blood flowing down the side of his head.

The gunmen ordered him out of the car and commanded him to throw his phone into the bushes. As they began to drive away, one pointed his gun at Waller and threatened to kill him on the spot — prompting Waller, battered and bloodied, to duck into an alley.

“These guys knew what they were doing, and they were so smooth about it,” said Waller, a defense and foreign policy strategist at the Center for Security Policy, a conservative think tank. “They seemed like real professionals.”

Michael Waller sits in Stanton Park in Washington.Caroline Gutman for NBC NewsThe carjacking in August 2021 made no headlines. It was part of a crime wave that shook the city during the pandemic. Four years later, the capital is teeming with National Guard troops and federal officers called in by President Donald Trump, who also took over the Metropolitan Police Department after highlighting the recent attempted carjacking of an administration staffer.