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Cops: Teen girls robbed cabbies, tourists at gunpoint

"They may be teens but I don't even classify them as girls, I classify them as violent predators," Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood said.

Upper Darby police are looking for this vehicle in reference to a series of gunpoint robberies committed by teenage girls.
Upper Darby police are looking for this vehicle in reference to a series of gunpoint robberies committed by teenage girls.Read moreProvided by Upper Darby Police Department

Upper Darby police are searching for two teenage girls who allegedly mugged two taxi drivers and two Ecuadoran tourists in three gunpoint robberies last week in the Delaware County township.

Around 9:25 p.m. June 19, a driver with Get-A-Cab responded to a call for a pickup on the 100 block of Glendale Road and was met by a teen girl who approached the passenger's side of his vehicle and asked for a fare estimate. While she distracted him, a second teenage girl went to the driver's-side window with a gun, pointed it at his head, and demanded cash, Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood said.

The cabbie handed over $100, and the girls ran off, police said.

Around 11:30 p.m., a driver with County Cab was dispatched to pick up a fare on the 200 block of Copley Road and was robbed in the same manner by two girls, who got away with $80, Chitwood said.

The same cellphone number was used to order both rides, and Chitwood said police are working to trace the calls.

Four days later, around 10 a.m. Friday, two women, ages 52 and 86, visiting from Ecuador and staying with relatives in Upper Darby, were leaving a house on the unit block of Kent Road when two girls approached, pointed a gun at them, and demanded their purses, Chitwood said. When the women, who do not speak English, did not easily give up their handbags, one of the teens punched the 52-year-old in the chest and the other hit the 86-year-old in the arm with her gun, Chitwood said.

The teens made off with the 86-year-old's purse, which contained $700 in cash, and with the 52-year-old's handbag, which contained $200 and a cellphone.

In Friday's case, Chitwood said, the robbers were seen entering and exiting a dark gray, newer-model Hyundai Sonata sedan, leading police to surmise that a third person served as a getaway driver.

The robbery suspects were described as black, both about 5 feet, 9 inches tall. One is heavyset with a ponytail, and the other had a thin build and wore a black head scarf, police said.

"They may be teens, but I don't even classify them as girls, I classify them as violent predators," Chitwood said. "When you use a gun as a weapon against an 86-year-old woman, that makes you a scumbag. These are adult crimes being committed by these individuals, and if we catch them, we'll charge them as such."