MEMPHIS, Tenn. — An East Memphis man who was injured as bullets struck his car soon turned the tables on the shooters.
Damian Hill, 27, said he returned fire, then pursued the suspects before crashing into them.
“I thought I was fixing to die ’cause that was my first time being in something like this,” he said.
Hill said things started Monday night when he was on the phone with his girlfriend as he drove to pick her up from the Family Dollar on Getwell near Elliston.
“As she was coming out the store she was like, ‘I’m being followed by a man,'” Hill said.
She told Hill the man was armed and was demanding that she open her bag.
She made it to Hill’s car, but then the couple spotted the same man in car with two others as they pulled up to a redlight outside the store.
“She just pointed, was like, ‘This the dude that just showed the gun at me,’ and I was like, ‘What’s up with that?'”
When the car sped off through a redlight, Hill figured that was the end of it.
It wasn’t until he had dropped his girlfriend off at home that he realized he was wrong.
“I just heard ‘Packa, packa, packa, packa, packa!’ I thought it was fireworks at first, and then I looked up and I saw the same car just right there stopped. And by the time I saw the car, phew! A bullet came through my front windshield, and I guess the glass and stuff hit my arm,” Hill said.
Hill ducked until the gunfire subsided, then reached for his own gun and opened fire on the suspects.
“I have a handgun carry permit and I feared for my life so once they took off I followed them trying to get a tag number,” Hill said.
While on the line with police, Hill chased the suspects until he crashed into them.
“[The suspects] acted like they was fixin’ to stop in front of the police, but then they took off and I was going so fast I smacked the back of that car,” he said.
Police arrested Timothy Achols and Derick Glass as well as Aquashia Wilbern, who police said was driving.
All are charged with aggravated assault. The two men also face weapons charges since police found two guns in the vehicle.