Ms. Scanlon had been walking to her car when she was approached by two people, the Philadelphia police said in a statement. They were armed and demanded the keys to Ms. Scanlon’s car, the police said. She handed over her keys, and then one of the attackers drove off in the car while the other got in an S.U.V. and followed the stolen car, the police said.
“I am relieved that Congresswoman Scanlon was not physically injured, and my thoughts are with her during this difficult time,” Philadelphia’s police commissioner, Danielle Outlaw, said in the statement. “The P.P.D. will continue to provide any support needed in this case and will work diligently alongside our federal partners to assist in bringing those responsible to justice.”
Ms. Outlaw said the Federal Bureau of Investigation had taken the lead in the investigation. The F.B.I. confirmed that its Philadelphia Violent Crimes Task Force was working with the police on the investigation but did not provide additional details.
The Delaware State Police said that the five suspects were all from Wilmington, Del. One of them, Josiah Brown, 19, who the State Police said in a statement had been “involved in the armed carjacking,” was in the custody of the F.B.I. for formal charging. The others, ages 13, 14, 15 and 16, were charged with receiving stolen property. The 15-year-old also was charged with resisting arrest and criminal mischief, the state police said.
As of Sunday, there had been nearly 2,300 gunpoint robberies in Philadelphia in 2021, an increase of 28 percent compared with the same period last year, when there were 1,775, according to police data. The number of gunpoint robberies in 2020, the first year of the coronavirus pandemic, was unusually low. In the five previous years, 2,163 to 2,885 gunpoint robberies were reported annually in the city, according to police data.
