Carjacking Prank Lands Two Teens In Jail

Two friends who decided to pull a prank on a woman by faking a kidnapping and carjacking are behind bars, police said.

The woman, 19-year-old Fernanda Hernandez, told police she was in a car with 19-year-old Brian Fischer when he stopped and picked up a man who was in the middle of the road.

Hernandez said the man Fischer picked up, 19-year-old Rafael Acosta, pulled out a knife and began threatening them. At the same time, Hernandez received a phone call from her father and she began to scream for help before Acosta demanded that she hang up.

Police said Fischer stopped the car and Hernandez immediately got out and walk to a nearby Whataburger restaurant in the 5600 block of Montana Avenue, where an officer spotted her visibly upset. She told the officer that she and her friend had been carjacked.

The officer called Fischer, who said he was on Arctraft Road in El Paso’s Upper Valley. Moments later, a different officer spotted Fischer’s car in the 4500 block Montana Avenue, which is in Central El Paso. Police pulled over Fischer’s car and later learned that he and Acosta were friends and had pulled a prank on Hernandez.

Hernandez told officers that she felt threatened during the incident. A second woman was in the vehicle, but police said she was not involved in the prank.

Fischer, of the 17600 block of Camino Bueno Street, and Acosta, of the 1500 block of Brown Street, were arrested on suspicion of terroristic threat. They were booked into the El Paso County Jail, with bond set at $1,000.