A Van Buren Township resident was on his way to his daughter’s house in Ypsilanti to do some painting for her, when he stopped to help a motorist who waved him down.
The simple act of kindness turned into an attempted carjacking that left the former Army Ranger with a gunshot wound in the arm and one of his assailants with a stabbed eye.
The incident happened at about 7:30 a.m., Saturday, Dec. 17, when the veteran left his home and drove west on the North I-94 Service Drive in front of EQ, with the intention of getting on I-94 at Rawsonville Road to head to Ypsilanti.
A man flagged him down and when the VBT resident stopped, the man came to his window and asked for a jump for his truck. The veteran said he didn’t have a cable, but the man said he did and so the veteran was willing to help.
Suddenly, his passenger door opened quickly and a second man jumped in and held a gun to his head.
The gunman said something like, “Move or say anything and I’ll shoot,” then told the Army veteran to get out of the car.
The vet said no because, he explained later, he thought he was going to be shot anyway. The man at the window started slashing at him with a razor knife and told his partner to “just shoot the mother f—-r.”
The veteran put his right arm up and knocked the gun away from his head. His seat belt was still holding him down, but he wrestled with the gunman and tried to avoid the knife on the other side.
He grabbed the gunman’s arm with his right hand, while the gun was aimed at his chest, and the man fired. The shot went into his arm. The pistol went down toward the floorboard and fired again.
The veteran said he had painter’s pants on for his day’s project and the pants had lots of pockets, including one for his screwdriver.
He was able to grab his screwdriver and stab the gunman in the eye. The man screamed and ran from the veteran’s truck calling out, “Help me, help me.”
The other assailant opened the door to their “disabled” truck, pushed his wounded friend inside, and took off.
The veteran said he considered following the pair, and decided he didn’t know how badly he was wounded and whether he would bleed out. He called his brother-in-law and told him he’d been shot. They called 911 and before he knew it VBT police and EMS arrived.
He said the bullet went in and out the fatty part of his arm, damaging only the muscle. He said police took his car, took it apart, and found both bullets inside.
The veteran said in his eight years as an Army Ranger, he had served all over the world, starting at Fort Bragg and then far-flung places including Africa, Panama, Grenada, and Columbia.
“I have post traumatic stress syndrome and I was doing really well,” he said last week. “But, now, the dreams are coming back.”
In response to the Independent’s Dec. 19 emailed request for more information on the “Robbery Armed” incident for 7:41 a.m., Dec. 17, VBT Police Captain Greg Laurain emailed back that it was a “false alarm”.
The Independent then talked to the victim several times, and on Dec. 23 the Independent asked Captain Laurain to double-check his information on the armed robbery his department has been investigating and whether it was really a “false alarm”.
At 8:31 p.m. Dec. 23, Captain Laurain emailed the following response: “When you initially inquired to the robbery I did not know what the victims address was and the incident originally occurred on the I-94 ser . [sic]
“I did not release any information to any media outlet on the I-94 ser dr [sic] reported robbery because of the on going investigation and the possibility of any information being given out at this time could compromise the progress of the investigation. Sorry for the mix up. Still not releasing anything on that incident.”
The Independent is not releasing the victim’s name since the perpetrators are still at large, but the victim wanted the public to be warned.