Carjacking victim: 'We're backing the cops'

A carjacking victim is speaking out about her accused attacker, saying no one should feel sorry for him because officers kicked and punched him when they arrested him on a Detroit sidewalk — an incident that was caught on videotape and has triggered widespread controversy.

Given what the suspect put her and her two grandsons through, the woman said, no one should pity him.

"Why didn't he treat me and my grandkids like human beings?" said the woman, a 55-year-old medical assistant who requested her name be withheld. "He terrorized three people. And I want (protesters) to humanize me. When you say, 'Oh that poor man — are you OK with the fact that he pulled a gun on my face?"

The woman spoke to the Free Press tonight about the Monday morning carjacking that ended with a coalition of officers tracking down the suspect a quarter-mile away, pinning him to the ground and punching and kicking him during his arrest. A citizen videotaped the arrest and posted it to Facebook.

The video went viral once the media picked it up and triggered an outcry from civil rights groups, who are calling for the officers' arrests. One of the officers is a Highland Park officer with a checkered past. One is from Grosse Pointe Park. They are part of an auto theft task force.

The victim, a native Detroiter who is now contemplating leaving the city, believes the officers acted appropriately.

"These coalition people are pissing me off," she said of those calling for charges against the officers. "Nobody cares that he terrorized two kids. They are trying to make this a Trayvon Martin or Mike (Brown) case ... I'm tired of people making this a racial thing, and they're not looking at what he did to my family."

She stressed: "My family? We're backing the cops."

The woman was especially irked when she heard the suspect asking for Jesus when he was getting arrested.

""He's calling on Jesus?" she said. "Where was Jesus when he pulled his gun on us."

Here, according to the woman, is what happened that Monday morning, before the videotape captured the controversial arrest.

It was about 7:40 a.m. She was sweeping snow off her car with a broom when out of the corner of her eye she saw a man walking nearby, carrying a white bag. She thought it might be his lunch, and that he was heading to the bus stop.

But the man doubled back.

"He put a gun in my face and said, 'I'm robbing you bitch,' " she recalled.

She told him she didn't have any money and that he couldn't take the car because her grandsons were inside. One of them has special needs.

"He told them to get the (expletive) out. He was yelling and screaming," she recalled, adding her 9-year-old said to his brother, 'Get out of the car. He's got a gun.' "

The two boys got out. The gunman sped off.

About a quarter-mile away, a group of officers tracked the suspect down: a parole absconder with a lengthy criminal past.

That's when a nearby citizen's camera started rolling.

The carjacking victim said the videotaped arrest doesn't tell the whole story. It only shows the officers making the arrest, not the horror the suspect put her and her grandsons through. As far as she's concerned, the officers acted appropriately.

"They chased him for a quarter of a mile. No one was killed. And they caught a felonious criminal," she said.

She stressed: "I don't want this guy using this as an excuse to get off."

Contact Tresa Baldas: tbaldas@freepress.com. Gina Damron contributed to this report.