Man watches his stolen SUV drive through Charlotte erratically on live TV

CHARLOTTE — The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said there have been 403 vehicles that have been stolen so far this year.

Last year at the same time, there were 226 that were stolen.

‘That’s my car’

Andrew Chiarelli’s Hyundai SUV was stolen Monday and on Tuesday, CMPD spotted it.

Chopper Skyzoom 9 launched and caught up with the SUV as it drove erratically through the city. The Hyundai crashed and two juveniles were apprehended.

>>Read more here about that incident.

Chiarelli was at work and had no idea what was going on until friends called him.

“My buddies called me and they are, like, ‘Hey man. We see a video of your car on a high-speed chase, right now, and I’m pretty sure it just crashed,’” Chiarelli told Channel 9. “Then they crashed the car, left it in drive, just jumped out and started running on foot. I’m just like holy smokes ... that’s my car. What’s going on?”

Chiarelli blames the manufacturers, Hyundai and Kia, because of the well-publicized issue of thefts of those kinds of vehicles.

“They’re still selling it to us without giving us any clue of what can actually happen and then once it does happen, you’re kind of stuck waiting on insurance like I am,” Chiarelli said.

CMPD said auto thefts are happening across the city.

While the Hyundai and Kia TikTok challenge is a part of the reason behind that, police said that too many drivers make it easy for thieves by leaving keys in their vehicles.

VIDEO: TikTok connection to stolen Hyundai

TikTok connection to stolen Hyundai

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