A car with a baby inside was stolen in Utah Monday. How often does that happen?

A mom had a terrifying moment in South Salt Lake Monday when her vehicle was stolen with her 8-month-old baby in the back seat. Police say a 29-year-old man made off with the running vehicle but it wasn’t long before he noticed the sleeping infant.

The baby’s mother, who’d only stepped away momentarily, reported the theft and kidnapping immediately and police began efforts to locate the car, according to reports.

Soon after that, alleged thief Dimitri Saliba pulled up to the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s office, where he handed the baby, unharmed, to an off-duty police officer and was promptly arrested.

Stories like these are shocking, but they don’t just happen once in a blue moon.

How often do cars get stolen with children inside?

Usually, people don’t steal cars with the intention of also kidnapping children who might be inside, they just don’t notice kids in the backseat until they’ve already taken the car, according to the nonprofit Kids and Car Safety .

Carjackings are crimes of opportunity. Perpetrators wait for cars that are either left running or with keys inside. They also know that they aren’t likely to be charged with a serious crime for only stealing a car. Kidnapping, though, is recognized as a felony in all states. Even so, carjackings involving children occur across the country, and rates of incidence have increased in recent years.

Between 2012 and 2022, annual incidents rose fairly steadily from 68 to 265, according to data collected by Kids and Car Safety . The sharpest increase happened between 2020, with 80 incidents, to 2022, with 265 incidents.

That’s just including children whose stories have been broadcast in the media, Kids and Car Safety director Amber Rollins told WTOP News .

“We know that it’s the tip of the iceberg. There are certainly other cases out there that didn’t make the news, and it is absolutely terrifying,” Rollins said .

Do these situations usually have happy endings?

Like in Monday’s incident in South Salt Lake, children often come out of these experiences physically unharmed. But, not every carjacker does the responsible thing when they notice a child in the backseat.

“Some of these result in high-speed chases and crashes. We’ve had children killed in these cases,” Rollins said, per News4Jax . “Children who have tried to escape and become tangled in the seat belt and were dragged to death.”

In August 2023, a carjacker in Florida stole a car with a nearly 2-year-old boy in the back. The perpetrator left the baby, still strapped into his car seat, in the sun on the side of the road. A bystander discovered him and called the police for help, per 7 News Miami .

In July 2020, a more violent scene unfolded when a man stole a van running in the parking lot of a California restaurant. Three children and an 18 year-old were in the van, waiting for their parents to pick up food, when the man entered the car and injured two of them and pushed them out of the car, per ABC news . The perpetrator took off with the other two children still inside the car, who were also pushed or jumped from the car. As a result, one died and the other sustained major injuries.

What precautions can people take to prevent this from happening?

You can’t necessarily prevent your car from being stolen, but you can take precautions to protect your children/pets and your car. According to Kids and Car Safety , carjackers tend to scout for opportunities at places like ATMs, gas stations, parking lots and residential areas, where people feel safe leaving their cars running.

In these spots — and wherever one might leave their car running — there are a few measures that will make your car less likely to get stolen.

• Don’t leave your car running. It’s the most obvious advice, but there’s almost never any reason that would make a car theft worth the rush of leaving your car unattended and running.
• Don’t leave your kids and/or pets unattended in a running car. The surest way to avoid any of the aforementioned carjacking with kids scenarios is to take your kids out of the car.
• Use drive-thrus and and curbside delivery services to avoid leaving your car unattended, especially if you’re in a rush with kids.
• Kids and Car Safety recommends holding onto your car keys and keeping doors locked while pumping gas, as some carjackers use this time as an opportunity to drive off with someone’s car.