Carjacker tried to steal her car with kids inside — but mom knew where the gun was, Texas cops say
One suspected Fourth of July carjacker messed with the wrong mama.
That suspect is in a Dallas area hospital after Michelle Booker-Hicks shot him in the face as he allegedly tried to make off with her SUV while her two sons were inside, according to local TV station KXAS.
She was paying for gas just after 10 p.m. Wednesday at a Shell station in south Dallas when police say she saw a man get into her SUV, KDFW reported. She ran back into the parking lot and jumped into the back seat of her car, where her sons, 2 and 4, also sat.
“I proceeded to jump in my backseat and told the gentleman to stop, to get out the car. He would not get out of the car," Booker-Hicks told the station. "He turned around and looked at me. I reached over the arm rest to get my glove compartment and that’s when I fired at him once I got the gun from my glove compartment,”
She pulled the trigger just once, and hit the man in the face, only hours after she and her husband decided to keep the gun in the SUV, according to KTVT.
“I should have just have emptied the whole clip but I didn’t. I didn’t. I just wanted to give him a warning shot that was it,” Booker-Hicks told the station. “I’m not a killer or anything like that, but I do believe in defending what’s mine.”
After getting shot, the man swerved and crashed the car into a fence surrounding a neighboring McDonald's restaurant and a utility pole, according to WFAA. He got out, stumbled across the street and collapsed in an empty parking lot before police responded.
Somehow, neither Booker-Hicks or her sons were injured. Dallas police interviewed them at the scene before letting them go home.
Police have not identified the suspect, but told KDFW that he would likely face kidnapping charges and a charge of unlawful use of a vehicle.
This story was originally published July 5, 2018 at 10:42 AM with the headline "Carjacker tried to steal her car with kids inside — but mom knew where the gun was, Texas cops say."