Nevada fugitive charged with Berkeley carjacking attempt
Police said Jason Dunaway told detectives he'd gone to the Berkeley Hills "looking to either steal work trucks or steal from work truck."
A man with a history of skipping court has been charged with pistol-whipping a Berkeley Hills resident during a recent carjacking attempt, court papers show.
This week, the Alameda County DA's office charged 31-year-old Jason Dunaway of Oakland with attempted carjacking with a deadly weapon, criminal threats, assault with a deadly weapon and elder abuse, according to charging papers.
Dunaway told Berkeley detectives he'd gone to the Berkeley Hills "looking to either steal work trucks or steal from work truck," police wrote.
He said he used a "fake gun" to hit the victim and then dumped the weapon near Lake Merritt, authorities said.
Emilie Raguso
Last Friday morning, Berkeley police responded to the 2700 block of Shasta Road to investigate the carjacking attempt.
Authorities said the victim, a 77-year-old Berkeley man, had briefly left his keys on his passenger seat while he ran back inside to grab his wallet.
When he came out, a woman was inside his truck on the passenger side holding his keys, according to charging papers.
The resident tried to get the keys back, which led to a struggle as he held the woman down, police wrote.
That's when a man with a gun showed up and struck the resident in the back of the head, leaving him with a cut BPD described as a "moderate injury."
Dunaway told the resident to let go of the woman, "or I will kill you," police wrote.
Read more about robberies in Berkeley.
The pair left in a gray Mercedes and took the stolen keys with them, according to charging papers.
As Berkeley police investigated the crime, they found surveillance footage of the duo fleeing the scene.
BPD alerted nearby law enforcement agencies to be on the lookout for them.
On Sunday, Oakland police spotted the Mercedes and pulled it over in East Oakland at about 7 p.m., according to charging papers.
Dunaway was behind the wheel and his girlfriend was in the passenger seat, police wrote.
Emilie Raguso
When BPD later searched the couple's hotel room in Oakland, they did not locate the car key from Shasta Road.
But they did find a gun holster, which was empty, as well as a gun cleaning kit, authorities said.
According to charging papers, Dunaway's girlfriend told police she'd seen him with a small gun within the past month.
She also told detectives she had not been on Shasta Road on Friday morning but said Dunaway had access to her car and that she did not know where he'd been at the time of the carjacking attempt.
Jason Dunaway. BPD
Police wrote that Dunaway had been arrested in the past on suspicion of gun possession, battery and auto theft.
"He's failed to appear in court at least six (6) times and had his probation revoked at least three (3) times in Alameda County," according to charging papers.
He was convicted of auto theft in Alameda County in 2015 and placed on probation.
Dunaway is also wanted by authorities in Reno, Nevada, because he skipped court in connection with a case there, BPD wrote.
As of this week, he remains in custody at Santa Rita Jail with a bail of $210,000, according to jail records.
Dunaway is scheduled for a pretrial hearing Feb. 27 at the Wiley Manuel Courthouse in Oakland.
Berkeley has had about a dozen robberies so far this year — a steep drop from historic, pre-pandemic averages of about one robbery a day.
Last year, there had already been more than 20 robbery reports in Berkeley in the same period.
