Carjacking Victim: Need To "Create Opportunities So People Don't Feel So Desperate"
DETROIT (WWJ) - Sharlonda Buckman was at the BP gas station at Jefferson and Montclair when a man approached her with a gun forcing from her car.
Buckman, who runs the Detroit Parent Network, said there needs to be more programs to help people like her carjacker:
"You know ... to create opportunities so people don't feel so desperate to do things like this and bring harm to other people," she said.
"I saw the man and the gun and he was telling me to get out of the car and they distracted him enough so I could run and I ran into the store, and Jackie is another Detroiter, so you know, ... immediately was telling the store owners what to do and call the police and ... it was a heroic effort on behalf of those citizens," Buckman said.
Detroiter Edith Smith said her son-in-law, Calvin, stopped at a BP gas station on East Jefferson for coffee just after 8 a.m. and saw an armed man force a woman out of her car - then drive off in her car.
Calvin, who has a concealed weapons permit, followed the carjacker and an exchange of gunfire ensued.
Calvin was shot in the arm and has been hospitalized in temporary serious condition.
It is not known whether the carjacker was injured during the shootout.
The suspect eventually drove the stolen vehicle into a canal near the Detroit River and fled in the second man's blue Ford Escort.
The gunman drove off in Calvin's 2009 Blue 4-door, Ford Escort.
The suspect is still at large.
