A Methuen Delivery Turned Out to Be a Trap for a DoorDash Driver
Police say a fake food order lured a delivery driver to a Methuen corner at 3 a.m., where he was held at gunpoint and his car was stolen. He was unharmed.
Scene imagery is illustrative — not the actual locationAround 2:55 a.m. on July 31, 2025, a delivery driver followed an order to the area of Coolidge and East Prospect Streets in Methuen. According to police, the order was a setup — placed to lure a driver to that exact spot.
When he arrived, there was no hungry customer waiting. Instead, he was held at gunpoint and his car — a Subaru Forester — was taken. Police said the driver, a man from Lawrence, was shaken but not physically hurt.
Officers were able to track down the stolen Subaru afterward, but as of the initial reports no suspects had been caught, and Methuen police asked anyone with information to come forward. For the driver, it was one delivery out of thousands of routine ones — the one where the order itself was the trap, placed by someone who knew exactly where a lone driver would pull up, and exactly when the streets would be empty.
Seconds versus minutes.
Nobody moves toward danger faster than police. The clock is still the clock.
Until they arrive, you are the plan: distance, locked doors, a phone in hand, training. A Massachusetts license takes months — start before you need it.
Sources: NENA 911 call-processing standard (STA-020.1-2020) · FBI, Active Shooter Incidents 2000–2013 · City of Boston, Boston About Results — BPD Performance Report. Boston's figure is its last published Priority 1 median, call receipt to arrival. Incident timing is from the FBI's study of timed violent incidents. Respect for the officers who answer these calls, always — this is arithmetic, not blame.
This could have been any of us.
Gig work is woven into normal life around here — delivering food, driving rideshare, dropping packages. Thousands of people across the Merrimack Valley earn money by going wherever an app sends them, often at night, often alone. This driver did nothing wrong. He accepted an order, like every other night. That's what makes it worth sitting with: the routine itself was the bait.
The reality most of us never see coming.
Sources: Council on Criminal Justice, Trends in Carjacking · Council on Criminal Justice, Trends in Carjacking · Mass.gov / EOPSS crime data release
What we tell our students.
Our instructors talk a lot with students who work nights — delivery drivers, nurses, cleaners, restaurant workers. The first conversation is never about firearms. It's about awareness: trusting the bad feeling, positioning your car to leave, keeping your head up between the car and the door. Avoidance beats any confrontation, every time.
The second conversation is about timelines. Most people look into a License to Carry only after a night like this one — theirs or a coworker's. In Massachusetts, the process realistically takes months from first class to license in hand, and the state's training requirement is exactly what our course is built to satisfy. If the thought has crossed your mind, start on a calm day. Future-you will be glad.
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