MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Steve Barron says he doesn’t bother anyone. That’s why he says when a man walked up to him on Wednesday, he wasn’t scared.
“I though he was just going to walk past me, so I said ‘Hey. How you doing?’ That’s when he pulled out his gun.”
Barron says he hangs out at the corner of Trigg and Wilson in South Memphis every day. But he won’t be doing that anymore.
“He said, ‘Give me all your money.’ I told him I didn’t have any.”
Police say the man did take a $20 bill and the cell phone Barron was holding.
“He started to reach for my pockets and I pushed his hands out of the way,” he said.
Barron says he told him all he had was pain pills to help cope with his liver cancer. “He was there to get whatever he could get.”
The two then started fighting and rolled over on the ground.
“He turned around and shot me. He went ‘boom.’ I got four bullet holes in my leg,” Barron said.
Witnesses told police the man was spotted running towards Jessie Turner Park.
“I was laying on the ground hollering. I was in so much pain. I was scared to death that he was going to kill me. He looked like he really didn’t care,” Barron said.
When he come to he realized the man had taken the cash from his Social Security check that was in his back pocket. That’s the money he needed to pay his rent.
Barron says he cashed his check, got robbed and put out of his home in just 24 hours. Now, he is just trying to get back on his feet.
He says he is grateful to be alive, but wants police to catch the person who robbed him and could have taken his life.
A witness told police the man was last seen wearing a whiteTt-shirt and green shorts.
If you have any information, you’re urged to call Crime Stoppers at (901)-528-CASH.
