MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A woman says she fought back against a criminal. Now she could face charges.
Carolyn King was getting in bed Tuesday when she heard something through her window.
“I went around the tail of my truck and met the perpetrator. I said a couple of words to him to try and get him to leave, but he was taking his time,” King said.
She said it was the second time someone broke in to her her truck in less than two weeks.
Her truck window was already taped before the latest break-in, but the suspect slashed through it.
“He definitely had some wire cutters of some sort,” King said.
She said when the suspect finally got out of her truck he shoved her, and she wasn’t sure what else he might do.
“Upon exiting the vehicle, I was attacked in my driveway. The perpetrator definitely caught some shots fired at him for trying to attack me,” King said.
Police said she fired six times.
She said the suspect then ran off down Harrell Street.
Eventually he got in his truck and King and her boyfriend followed. They also called 911.
“The dispatch took every instruction, she also instructed me what was the next cross street ahead,” King said.
She followed the suspect 11 miles to a warehouse on Airways.
When police showed up, though, they told her she was a suspect too.
“For someone to tell you that you’ll be charged with a crime when you were the victim is very terrifying. Your justice system can fail you and blame you,” King said.
Police said she she’s now under investigation for shooting at the break-in suspect.
Memphis Police spokesman Louis Brownlee told WREG Tennessee laws didn’t allow deadly force to protect property like cars and only allowed for it when you think someone could kill or cause serious injury.
However, King said she was justified.
“They ask us to do as much as we can as a community, and when we do as much as we can, they blame us,” she said.
Police also arrested Ernest Taylor and accused him of breaking in to King’s boyfriend’s truck.
Taylor told WREG he knew nothing about the incident and authorities had the wrong guy. He said he works at the warehouse on Airways and was there around midnight to check on his truck.
