Last Monday, a 17-year-old had guns pointed at his chest and head in a carjacking at 6:30 p.m. in front of his house in south Minneapolis. The assailant ditched his car several blocks away.

Then on Friday, an armed hit-and-run suspect tried to carjack a woman in north Minneapolis as she was heading to the kickoff of the Twin Cities Salvation Army's annual Red Kettle Campaign, capping a week of more than 50 attempted or successful carjackings in the city.

Residents in Minneapolis, St. Paul and increasingly some suburban communities are experiencing a record surge in armed carjackings, crimes that are terrorizing victims, baffling police and putting motorists on edge.