NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Stolen guns and stolen cars are becoming a growing problem across Nashville.
Police strongly encourage drivers to lock their car doors, get their belongings out of sight — especially guns — and take their keys with them.
Ebony Williams is echoing this same advice.
She said her Sunday morning started like any other, but it ended with a gun pointed at her face.
"He had a ski mask, you know — so, he had on all black, but I definitely remember his eyes and his face. If I ever actually see him without the mask I would know who he is," said Williams.
Williams said she was coming inside her Dickerson Pike Apartment last week when she was robbed at gunpoint.
"All I’ve been thinking about is how I heard him hopping up the steps, and I turn around and there’s a gun in my face," Williams said.
According to the police report, dispatch received a call from the victim saying she had just been robbed at gunpoint by a light-skinned Black male suspect wearing all-black clothing.
Williams said she had just come home from visiting her mother and was walking up the stairs to her third-story apartment when she was approached by the suspect on the second floor.
The suspect held her up against the wall, pointed a black handgun in her face, and demanded everything she had.
The suspect took her purse, which carried her wallet and the keys to her 2019 Gray Dodge Challenger.
"I was just shocked. I didn’t say nothing for the last few days. I'm still shocked, like, at what happened," Williams said.
One minute her car was parked out front, and in the next instant, it was gone.
Surveillance video of yet another incident shows the moments a car thief stole a car from the driveway of a Nashville family's home.
The feelings of fear and betrayal that can come of such an occurrence are feelings that Williams said, unfortunately, she knows too well.
"For it to happen outside where I stay at — that’s a violation of privacy," Williams said.
Of all the cars stolen in Nashville last week, 64% of them — or 46 of the 72 cars stolen — were easy targets because the keys were left inside or were easily accessible.
MNPD says just like guns taken from vehicles, these stolen autos are also routinely involved in criminal activities, including carjackings and robberies.
Williams has started a GoFundMe account to help her buy another car to support her family.
She said her puppy was inside the car when it was stolen. She is begging the thieves to return the dog home.
