MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A Frayser business owner says he and a customer took off after a thief after he watched someone rifle through his truck and take his gun.
Johnnie Jackson owns Jay5’s Wings on Thomas Street. Saturday, he watched as a woman stole personal items and a handgun from his unlocked pickup, parked about 20 feet from the front door.
“It’s the one day I didn’t lock my doors, and that’s the day it happened,” Jackson said.
Security camera video shows a red SUV cruising past his business around 4 p.m. He was waiting on a customer, when he witnessed the SUV pull beside his Dodge Durango.
The female driver reached into his truck and a grabbed a travel bag containing a Smith & Wesson handgun.
Jackson dropped the wings and sprang into action.
“I was yelling at her, like, ‘What are you doing? What’s going on?'”
Jackson tried to stop the woman from getting away. “I looked inside her truck and I seen my belongings on the passenger side. I kind of held the mirror … She balled off. And that’s when I asked the customer at the time to help me chase her down the street.”
The pair pursued the SUV north on Thomas but lost sight of the vehicle when it turned down a side street.
Jackson’s concerned about crime getting too close for comfort.
Around the neighborhood Monday, a crew was installing heavy gauge roll-up doors on the front windows of a nearby liquor store that had been burglarized in the past month.
“It would make it harder for the criminal to break in,” said Jeff Granger, who was installing the doors. “They would create a lot of commotion, draw attention to themselves, which is what they don’t want.”