Driver Candice Kozinski said the men entered on a ride booked under a woman’s profile and forced her out near North 41st Street and West Hampton Avenue.
MILWAUKEE, WI — A Milwaukee Lyft driver says four passengers carjacked her at gunpoint early Saturday after asking her to pull over on the city’s north side, then threw her from her vehicle and sped away, leaving her shaken and ending her time on the platform.
The account adds to continued concern around armed carjackings in Milwaukee even as police data show the crime has fallen from the pace seen a year earlier. The driver, Candice Kozinski, said her vehicle was later recovered, but no suspects had been publicly identified by Monday. The case matters now because it highlights both the lingering threat of opportunistic street violence and the risks faced by app-based drivers who often pick up riders they have never met in the middle of the night.
Kozinski said she had gone out driving after finishing her day job at Aurora, where she works as a patient service representative. She said the ride that turned violent was her fourth trip of the night. In the Lyft app, she said, the request appeared to come from a female passenger. But when she arrived at the pickup, four males got into the vehicle instead. A few minutes into the trip, one rider said he felt sick and asked her to pull over. Kozinski said she believed he was about to vomit, so she stopped near North 41st Street and West Hampton Avenue. “I pulled over, and then he was like, ‘Get out of the car,’” Kozinski said in recounting the encounter. She said the threat turned immediate within seconds.
After the vehicle stopped, Kozinski said she felt a gun pressed into her lower back. She said she tried to resist, reaching under the barrel in an effort to push the weapon away. “They are all stronger than me,” she said, describing the struggle. She said the next thing she remembered was being on the ground as the group drove off in her SUV. Her account suggests the attack was fast, coordinated and planned around the stop. What remains unknown is whether the riders used a stolen or fake profile, whether they had targeted a rideshare driver in advance, and whether surveillance video or app records have helped investigators identify them. By later that night, Kozinski said, police had found her vehicle. Even with the recovery, she said the return did not feel like a resolution because documents were missing and the interior had been disturbed.
The car, she said, still showed the marks of the investigation the next day, with fingerprinting dust left behind by detectives. Kozinski also described the more personal cost of the attack. “The car is there, but it’s not the same,” she said. “Yes, I am alive, but I was still violated, my property was still violated at the same time.” That distinction matters in cases like this because a recovered vehicle can close one part of a police search while leaving victims with lasting fear, financial disruption and damage that goes beyond repairs. For app drivers, the vehicle is often both personal property and a source of income. In Kozinski’s case, she said the episode was enough to make her quit driving for Lyft altogether, cutting off what had been side work after her regular shift.
Milwaukee has spent years trying to reduce carjackings, which surged during and after the pandemic in many cities, especially cases involving teenagers and groups of offenders. City police statistics cited in local reporting show 40 carjackings in Milwaukee since the start of 2026, down 44% from the same point in 2025. Even with that drop, the crime remains highly visible because of how sudden and public many attacks are, and because victims are often selected in everyday settings such as gas stations, parking lots, neighborhood streets and rideshare pickups. The location Kozinski identified, near 41st and Hampton, sits in a part of the city where late-night traffic, commercial strips and residential blocks meet, giving offenders quick ways to move in and out. Her description of a ride request tied to one profile but occupied by several different people also raises questions that investigators and rideshare companies have grappled with before.
As of Monday, the public record in this case appeared limited to Kozinski’s account and the fact that the vehicle had been recovered. No criminal charges had been publicly announced, and no court dates or arrest hearings had been identified in connection with the attack. That means the next procedural steps are likely to center on evidence review: matching fingerprints or other forensic material from the vehicle, pulling any nearby camera footage, reviewing ride records and account details, and tracing the route and communications connected to the trip request. If investigators identify suspects, the case could move quickly into charging decisions involving armed carjacking, robbery or related firearm counts under Wisconsin law. Until then, the case remains in the investigative stage, with the most immediate public milestone being any arrest announcement or police update confirming who booked the ride and who was inside the vehicle when it was taken.
Kozinski’s account also captures the human side of a crime often reduced to statistics. She said what first struck her was not just the theft but the moment the ordinary rhythm of the job broke apart. One minute she was responding to a routine passenger request on an app; moments later, she said, she felt a gun in her ribs and was fighting to keep control of the car. Her description of the aftermath was less dramatic than the assault itself but just as revealing: garbage left inside, important papers gone, police powder still clinging to the recovered vehicle. Those details turned the SUV from a piece of evidence back into a daily reminder. The attack, as she described it, did not end when the suspects drove off. It followed her home, into her sense of safety, and into her decision to stop driving strangers for extra money after dark.
By Monday evening, the vehicle had been recovered but the people who Kozinski says pulled the gun and stole it had not been publicly named, and the next major development was expected to come only if Milwaukee police announce arrests or release new details from the investigation.
Author note: Last updated March 30, 2026.