Two armed men held up the 7-Eleven on Zang and Colorado Sunday afternoon. As they made their getaway, Dallas Police were fanned out, searching for a vehicle matching the description given by witnesses. A police helicopter crisscrossed the area. It didn't take long for officers to find them.
What followed was a wild ride through the streets of North Oak Cliff.
The chase apparently wound through Kessler Park. The suspect in the passenger seat bailed out and was quickly arrested. The other suspect in the robbery, a man named Justen Hill, 24, sped on. He came to a dead-end on Green Street in a quiet, tree-lined neighborhood past its intersection with North Winnetka Avenue.
He stepped out of the vehicle with a gun in his hand, police say. According to a couple of witnesses (who also happen to be my neighbors), he wore a bandanna and aviator sunglasses, like some Halloween approximation of an outlaw. Police say they shouted at him to put down his weapon, but he turned to face them instead.
The witnesses say they heard multiple gunshots. The man, they said, looked as though he took a direct hit to the buttocks and hit the pavement.
"The suspect was transported to Methodist Central Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries," the report says.
My neighbors were clearly suffused with adrenaline as they recounted the incident. It was like a movie, they said, as they watched the bloody desperado carried off to the hospital for treatment of his fleshy, ignominious wound.
The Dallas County Sheriff's Office didn't have a mugshot of the man. He's still recovering in the hospital. When he's well enough, he'll be booked on suspicion of aggravated assault and aggravated assault on a public servant. They're charging him with aggravated kidnapping because the man police believed was his alleged accomplice bailed out of the car. There's a thin line between hitching a ride and becoming an accessory. Oak Cliff, y'all.
