The Mercury News22%
Oakland man sentenced to nearly seven years for carjacking, evading police 3%
By Caelyn Pender0%
7/16/2026, 12:00:38 PM
Keywords: Bay Area Crime, Courts, Crime, East Bay Crime, Peninsula Crime, Carjacking, Evading Police, San Mateo County
BS Summary: This article contains 14 faulty reasoning types, including Confirmation Bias, Red Herring, and Overconfidence Bias, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 14.2% saturation with 84 hits. Analysis detected 398 faulty-reasoning hits from 592 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 15.3% and a BS Rank of 3% (20,605 of 21,197 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 97.20% of the article peer group.
REDWOOD CITY — An Oakland man was sentenced Monday to nearly seven years in prison for fleeing police from the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge to San Francisco and carjacking a vehicle with the driver still inside before crashing outside and fleeing into one of the city’s biggest venues, authorities said.
Jacob Shacarr Lawrence pleaded guilty to one count of carjacking and one count of fleeing a police officer’s vehicle causing serious injury, according to the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office.
Criminal Presiding Judge Jeffrey B.
Jackson sentenced Lawrence to five years in prison for the carjacking count, then a consecutive sentence of one year and eight months for the count of fleeing an officer, prosecutors said.
“We do think that the sentence is appropriate in this case,” said Shin-Mee Chang, chief deputy district attorney for the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office.
“We believe it’s proportional to the crimes.”
“The public should be very mindful that vehicles can be weaponized and we should all obey traffic laws,” she added.
Lawrence was originally also charged with kidnapping a person during a carjacking, fleeing the scene of a collision and reckless evasion of a police officer, as well as an enhancement for the incident occurring while he was out on bail in another case, prosecutors said.
Those charges were dismissed as part of the plea deal.
“We offered these counts because we felt that these counts were strong, meaning we could prove them at trial, and that these two charges adequately labeled the conduct and gave us an adequate sentencing range,” Chang added.
Robert Byers, Lawrence's defense attorney, said that the case's resolution was a "plea deal in the classic sense."
"These are always compromises," Byers said.
"He pled to the more serious (charges), both of which are strikes under California law.
"(Lawrence is) just resigned," he added.
"He thought it was the most intelligent decision he could make.
I don't think anybody is ever happy going to prison, but you have to make tough choices and this is one he had to make."
Just before noon on Sept.
28, 2023, Lawrence fled from Oakland police officers across the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge, driving his vehicle at speeds up to 100 mph, prosecutors said.
The vehicle he was driving had been involved in a homicide, Chang said, noting that that does not mean he was connected to that homicide.
He then crashed his vehicle, causing a three-car collision on the bridge, prosecutors said.
That collision caused a minor laceration to the face of one driver, Chang added.
The collision left Lawrence’s vehicle disabled, prompting him to enter a passing Nissan van, prosecutors said.
Lawrence ordered the vehicle’s driver to take him to San Francisco, to which the victim “fearfully complied.”
Lawrence continually shouted at the victim to drive his vehicle faster.
The Nissan was pursued by a California Highway Patrol vehicle, which stopped it on Highway 101 near Dore Avenue, prosecutors said.
During the stop, the victim fled the vehicle and Lawrence took over driving.
Lawrence continued on to the Moscone Center in San Francisco, where he drove over another person’s foot, causing a fracture, prosecutors said.
He then crashed the van and fled into the Moscone Center, where a conference was underway.
Lawrence hid in a locked office until police broke through a wall to arrest him, prosecutors said.
Lawrence was also found to be in possession of the victim’s cellphone.
Lawrence will next appear in court Sept. 22 for a restitution hearing.
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