CHICAGO – In a horrific Labor Day ordeal, a Chicago mother of two found herself screaming for her life while her 10-year-old son sprinted for safety.
The event transpired in broad daylight on the 7300 block of South Wabash in the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood.
“I got my baby, please don’t hurt me!” 35-year-old Samara Harmon pleaded as she was held at gunpoint. The entire encounter, filmed on a Ring camera, showed the thief cocking his handgun twice as Harmon begged for mercy.
“You could hear the gun ready to fire,” Harmon remembered. “He said, ‘Bi***, open your purse, or I’ll blow your f**ing brains out.'”
Harmon had just gotten home from the laundromat with her son, Amari when the gunman confronted her. The video shows toddler Amari searching for aid, his small footsteps hitting the street as he searched for someone for nearly 30 minutes.
Still struggling with the death of his father, Amari has now been left scarred by yet another brush with violence.
“He could’ve taken our lives. He could’ve taken our lives,” Amari claimed.
The gunman made off with $1,700, Harmon’s ID, and other personal items. The money had been her savings to start a new life in Atlanta, away from Chicago’s rising gun violence.
“I love my city, but I’m not about to lose my life to gun violence,” Harmon told the crowd. “I’m a taxpayer, and I deserve better.”
Thinking on her feet, Harmon deceived the robber by announcing that police were nearby.
“There go the police, run!” she cried. The man fled the scene, hopping into the passenger seat of a waiting 2019 blue Honda Civic.
Harmon and her children are physically uninjured, but the event has left them emotionally wrecked.
“It’s traumatizing,” Harmon said, adding that her feeling of security, along with her valuables, has been stolen.
Before the crime, neighbors reported seeing the guy casing the neighborhood and attempting to break into a nearby home.
Chicago police affirm that the investigation is ongoing, with detectives from Area One assigned to the case.