YPSILANTI TOWNSHIP, Mich. – Two 14-year-old girls accused of attacking a pizza delivery driver in Ypsilanti Township face a possibility of life in prison, officials said.
The father of four children said he was attacked by two girls with collapsible police batons and robbed.
"I've got four kids and a wife to take care of," Kenneth Stoops Jr. said. "I'm, like, 'I'm dead.'"
The robbery escalated into a carjacking and police chase, officers said. Now the 14-year-old girls face serious charges.
Stoops said he was working on his night off because someone called in sick. He was delivering his last pizza of the night around midnight Sunday when he was beaten, robbed and carjacked, police said.
The alleged thieves are two high school freshmen, who are accused of leading police on a high-speed chase.
"First hit here, I went to the ground," Stoops said. "Her partner came out of the bushes and hit me on this side, right here. They said, 'Lay on the ground and do not say anything.' They took the food, my money, and off they went."
Stoops said he knew something wasn't right when the address for his last delivery from Happy's Pizza turned out bad. He tried the call-back number, and a woman told him she was sitting on a nearby porch on Davis Street. He said he found her.
Once he was on the ground, Stoops said, the girls left his flashlight, phone and GPS because they could be tracked, and took $80 and his mountaineer SUV.
"I was begging for my life because I didn't know whether they are going to stop," Stoops said.
He thought their last move was particularly vicious.
"They took out my driver's license," Stoops said. "They took a picture of it, and they said, 'If you call the police or if we get arrested, we will take care of your family.'"
Azjane Marielle Cummings and Deazijah Nicole McCoy-Yargee, both from Ypsilanti, were arraigned Wednesday. They're charged with carjacking, armed robbery and resisting arrest.
Police said Cummings was already on probation for an altercation with her mother and for cutting the tether off her ankle to participate in this robbery.
Prosecutors said the teens led the Washtenaw County Sheriff's Office on a wild chase that reached speeds greater than 90 mph around the neighborhood before police used stop sticks to end it.
Stoops said this won't end his pizza delivering career.
"No it will not, because they're not going to win," Stoops said. "I figure if I give up delivering pizza or doing what I want, they win. I won't let them win."
Both teens are being charged as adults. The magistrate who heard the charges and the explanation believed neither teenager could be counted on to show up for court hearings, so she ordered both of them to be held without bond in the Juvenile Detention Facility.
They're scheduled to return to court later this month.