A video from one family’s harrowing encounter with two armed car thieves showed the moment they were fired upon in broad daylight last week by two men in Mississippi.
No one was injured in the middle-of-the-day auto theft, but one of the victims told a Jackson, Mississippi, news station that they are still dealing with trauma after they were shot at during an otherwise peaceful afternoon.
WAPT reported the brazen crime occurred last Friday afternoon in the Mississippi capital when members of a family were saying their goodbyes in their driveway.
Video from a Ring doorbell camera showed a woman named Heather Allen with one of her sons outside of a family vehicle.
Another son, her daughter, and two of her grandchildren were in the vehicle when two men approached, one of them with a handgun.
Shots rang out while Allen and one of her sons ducked for cover.
The video showed two black males approaching the parked sedan, with one of them opening the driver's door and pulling out Allen’s adult daughter.
The man also pointed a gun in the face of Allen’s other son, but he escaped unharmed, she said.
The men demanded the car keys while Allen was able to get to the back seat and pull out her grandchildren.
“My babies, my babies are in the car,” Allen said her daughter yelled out to the men.
No one was injured.
Ultimately, the perpetrators were unable to leave in the car that was targeted, so Allen said she threw them a set of keys to another vehicle parked in her yard, which they left in.
No one was in custody as of Tuesday, but Jackson Police Chief Joseph Wade told WAPT his department knows who the suspects are and he is working to arrest them.
Allen's vehicle was found less than an hour after the incident, only a few blocks away from the woman’s home.
Wade said it was impounded but would soon be released to her.
The brave grandmother told WAPT that she had only moved to Jackson -- a city known for violent crime \-- a few months ago.
She is now planning to move out of the city.
"We can't stay here anymore," she said.
"I'm not sleeping. My oldest son, his anxiety is through the roof -- he's even scared,” Allen added. “My daughter, she has shock, but they're safe.”
Wade shared sympathy for what the family went through in a statement to WAPT.
"I had an opportunity to look at the video of Ms. Allen and her family being robbed and carjacked in their driveway," the police chief said.
He concluded, “It was extremely disturbing to me. It was very concerning to me because a threat to them and their family is a threat to everyone."
