CLEVELAND — Carjackers stole more than just a nurse’s SUV and cell phone. The woman’s sense of peace is gone now, too.
It happened at a convenience store just after midnight Wednesday on West 117th Street just South of Lorain Avenue.
Pattie Capps said Cleveland police found her SUV in an empty lot on the east side, but three guys, including one with a gun, are still out there.
Capps is having a hard time as this crime has brought on sleepless nights laden with fear.
Did you think he was going to shoot you? “Yes, I did, yes I did,” Capps said.
Capps is a nurse by day and a former ride-share driver at night. Even during those rides, she said she never felt threatened.
"I was never even disrespected, let alone something like this ever happening, and it was going out to get a lottery ticket. I still can’t even believe that part to it,” Capps said.
Capps stopped at the Mini Mart on West 117th Street to cash in a lottery ticket and try her luck again. She said that's when she remembered a car backing in next to hers.
Capps said she parked right in front of the Mini Mart doors and was in the store for about 15 minutes. She then walked out and got in her SUV.
“Felt a little bit eerie, so I thought, 'I’m going to lock the door,' and the minute I went to turn and hit the lock, there was a man standing there with a gun,” Capps said.
Capps said the gunman, wearing a medical mask, snatched her phone and repeatedly asked for her passcode.
She told him she couldn’t remember it with a gun on her.
“I finally turned around and swore at him and said, what the ‘f’ do you want, and he said 'the truck b****,'” Capps said.
She knew she had to put distance between them and headed for the store.
“It was in slow motion but very fast,” Capps said.
Capps said he yelled for her keys, which she tossed and for her purse, but she yelled back that there was nothing in it and kept walking.
“There was a lot of fear, but then I became angry too because I was afraid,” Capps said.
She said she remembered seeing two cars leaving the Mini Mart really fast as she pulled in and now believes one was the carjackers targeting someone else before turning around to come for her.
“I work my a** off to get where I’m at, and for them to just think it’s okay to take it is wrong; it’s just wrong all the way around,” Capps said.
Capps has lived in Cleveland her entire life, and this has her wanting to up and move.
"It robs you of something; I’m just not sure of what that is; aside from peace, it definitely robs you of your peace,” Capps said.
Capps said the store owner showed her some of the surveillance video of the moments before her attack. She said of the three culprits, one may have been a teenager who got in her passenger seat.
She said she expects police will look for prints in the next week.
