Carjacker in Coral Springs told woman to take her child out of car or else, police said

CORAL SPRINGS — As a mother was putting her child in the car seat of a Kia outside a Walmart in Coral Springs, a man got into the driver’s seat and told her, “Sweetie, this is a carjacking. Take your kid out of the car or I’m driving off with her,” according to an arrest report.

She did so and Steven Bryan McCluskey drove off in the car, but he didn’t get far, said Coral Springs police.

McCluskey, 40, crashed into another car less than a mile north in the 4800 block of Creekside Drive, southwest of the Sawgrass Expressway and State Road 7, police said.

He hid in some bushes daring responding police to shoot him. They did — with a stun gun — and took him into custody, the report stated.

It started about 4 p.m. Wednesday at the Walmart Supercenter at 3801 Turtle Creek Drive, northwest of Sample Road and State Road 7.

At McCluskey’s first court appearance Thursday, Broward assistant state attorney Eric Linder said the alleged carjacking violated probation that was court ordered just 10 days earlier for an unrelated domestic violence case.

“He threatened the woman that if she didn’t get her child out of the car that he would leave with the child in her vehicle, essentially threatening to kidnap her child,” Linder said in court.

McCluskey is charged with carjacking without a firearm or weapon, resisting arrest without violence, leaving the scene of a crash with damage to property, and violating probation.

He remains in the Broward County Jail without bond.